To Thine Own Self, Be Food

I'm all over these days on this blog, yeah?  No real pattern or theme, other than "eclectic".  Or maybe "eccentric"?  I do what I feel doing, then I write about it.  You'll all let me know if it's not working for you, okay? This week, I feel like working with red meat.  And I feel like working with it in a sort of cobbled French style.  And it's fitting, because as of today's statistical reading, there are 11 French readers.  Or 11 French robots.  Or 11 French search engines.  Or 11 American spam sites posing as French readers.  But, let us remain un optimiste , eh? Today's practice was a Beef Bourguignon.  Or, Beef Burgundy.  This dish originated in the Burgundy region in France, and, way back in the day, was a dish prepared by peasants who couldn't always get the best, tenderest cuts of meat (the damned aristocracy...off with their heads!).  And those peasants knew then what we know now...lean and tough cuts of beef ...

We're going to keep this story short today. This is my latest purchase.  I've chronicled it all here: I've juiced.  I've blended.  I've smoothied.  Now, I want to extract.  I want the most out of my fruits, my greens, my extras...and this is just the appliance to do it. Okay.  Honestly.  I've been eyeballing one of these for some time now.  My mom and dad recently expressed desire in getting one for smoothie purposes...and well, today was the day. And really, it all began with the idea of creating good, healthy, nutritious drinks that would easily give us our helping of fruits and vegetables in one day.   As you see above, there's spinach in the bottom, tomatoes, pickles, celery, and cucumbers.  For this Nutribullet's maiden voyage, we were attempting a homemade V8 juice.   From there, things went downhill (well, not really).  Someone found this in her liquor cabinet...along with Worcestershire sauce, c...

Although it's a one-step-forward, two-steps-back process around these parts, Spring is nearly here. Thank the Maker.  Soon, the dead things on this Earth will be gone and replaced by beautiful, living things. And it is this profound thought that makes me think of my refrigerator. The latest round of Refrigerator Purge turned up an interesting little jar of Fig Spread.  The last man standing from the Christmas Food Basket gift from my parents.  The cheese, the meats, the spiced pecans...long since gone.  The Fig Jam was all that remained. Until today.  After consulting my Flavor Bible, I decided to do a Fig Jam and Manchego Grilled Cheese Sandwich. The starting line-up here is quite simple.  The long-neglected fig spread, cheese, bread, and butter. I happen to own one of those really crummy cheap-wire cheese slicer...so naturally, my Manchego was coming off in thin, uneven, janky little pieces...which actually turned out best for sandwich makin...

I'd really like to be able to post today about some amazing food thing I've done or learned recently. But alas, I won't be able to today. In typical vaudeville-esque fashion, I am trying to keep the spinning plates aloft in the air. Plate #1 - The Educational Plate: I finish the last of my two six-week classes TODAY.  I will be giving a presentation on the business I have developed.  This project has consumed quite a bit of time and energy, as the instructor wants specifics regarding what kind of equipment we need, food inventory, floor plan, employee job descriptions, and the like.  I also sat for a comprehensive Culinary Exam on Tuesday...which required a little studying and preparing for as well. Plate #1.a (or #2) - The Internship Plate: After today, Plate #1 will no longer be part of the act, but it will be replaced by #1.a or #2...Getting Ready for Internship.  I leave in less than a month for the shores of Lake Huron.  I will be gone for six month...

Most of the time, I'm all for enlarging vocabularies.  After teaching high school and college students, I'm usually for any kind of word enrichment that goes beyond "adorbs" and "totes magoats"...or, even worse, swear words. No, you have not wandered into the Pristine Language Plane of the Internet.  I admit, I drop the f-word just as unabashedly as the next person...but the way young people use the f-word these days?  Indiscriminately?  So much that it loses meaning? I really hate that. The f-word is becoming so common, and so without meaning. And especially when the English language has so many other suitable and eloquent replacements...it's just unforgivable.  It really is. But...there are always exceptions.  Sometimes a common cuss word is exactly what's needed to describe a particular situation or person. For example: fuckery, noun ; total nonsense, or a wrong or unfair action; Synonyms include: bulls#!t, a crock, a scam, etc. You...

You ever have one of those days where you feel golden?  Like, everything you did was pretty awesome and productive?  ( You know, the opposite of anything that happens in our nation's capital? ) That was yesterday for me.  The whole day just felt good , you know?  I mean, most days I have pockets of awesomeness, but they're not usually connected and consistent. First.  Bone-in chicken breasts on sale at the local Fareway.  For me, that means: practice chicken fabrication skills and make stock. Making my own stock is always one of the most satisfying tasks I am currently aware of.  After a day of simmering chicken carcass, mirepoix, and other sundry seasonings, I froze 18 cups worth of stock this morning.  That's four and a half of those boxes of Swanson's...at a fraction of the cost. The chicken breasts I fabricated went into a crockpot for yestereve's dinner, as I put my own spin on this chicken recipe (fresh mango, not dried, apple j...

I guess there's a phenomenon these days traveling the Internets referred to as "Throwback Thursday".  People post pictures of themselves or others from their younger years...and we're talking decades back...not those imbeciles who post a photo from, like, 2009. One of these days I'd like to participate in Throwback Thursday; mostly because there's this fabulous picture of my brother, looking like 'Adam' from "Eight is Enough", and he's filthy from head to foot, and I'mnotlying, he looks like some street urchin from Uganda or Yugoslavia and would make Sally Struthers bawl her eyes out. Someday, I'm gonna post that.  That'll show him.  Then, he'll wish he'd shared his Wendy's Frosties with me back in the day. But usually by the time I remember I need to go over to my parents' house and get that picture, scan it, and post it, it's already Friday.  Too late.  Maybe next week. Speaking of my parents, I...