Tag: cooking

ICELAND

WheelTug picked up its eleventh airline yesterday — Icelandair.  I know the Arctic is not technically a continent — just frozen water — and that probably the folks at the Iceland Tourism Department would rather identify their country with Europe than with the Arctic anyway. But if the Arctic were the eighth continent, and the island of Iceland were on it instead of just sort of rising up out of the ocean near it, that would allow us to say “11 airlines on four continents.”

QUICK CORN

Just in time for summer, Cooking Like A GuyTM, part 63.  I haven’t posted a recipe in a long time because since we switched to WordPress I haven’t figured out how elegantly to insert the TRADEMARK symbol.  And still haven’t, but I trust you. [UPDATE: Thanks to Mark L., I now do! Cooking Like A Guy™.]

So here, to compensate at least a little, two new recipes.  Starting with corn.

Step one: buy corn.

Step two: microwave to taste.

Seriously, it’s that simple.  If it’s good corn, just three or four minutes, husks and tassles and all, and it should be amazing.  When it cools down a little, shuck, salt, pepper, eat.

INSTANT BAKLAVA

The simplest way to cook baklava is just to buy some.  But who ever thinks to do that?  Instead:

1.  Pour a little granola into a small bowl.  Or corn flakes, raisin bran — whatever.

2.  Dip a spoon into a jar of honey.  I know, honey is not that manly, but everyone should have a jar – it’s honey. How can you not?  Bears love honey, and bears are manly.  You could name a football team after bears.  So just dip the damn spoon into the damn jar and then . . .

3.  Putting the base of the spoon onto the floor of the bowl, push some of the granola on top, and then – still holding the now-honey-and-granola-laden spoon level with one hand, take a small knifeful or forkful of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter Light (or actual butter, but I’m trying to delight you, not kill you) and dab it on top of the granola, scraping it off the knife or fork with the edge of the spoon.

4.  Put the spoon in your mouth, close your lips, and, as you pull the spoon back out, leaving all the granola and ICBINBL in your mouth — but just some of the honey to swirl around and just make you crazy it’s so good, just as baklava does, but without having had to bake anything or clean anything (read on).

5.  Repeat until all the granola from the bowl and all the honey from the spoon are gone and you’ve licked the spoon and any honey that dripped onto the bowl, so everything is perfectly clean, as if you were a cat – though, being a guy, you have a dog.  By which I mean a dog – a large, sloppy Labrador retriever or somebody, not one of those dogs that really are so tiny and (let’s just come right out and say it) French, they’re barely dogs at all.

And that, my friends, is how a guy makes baklava.

RELIGION

Tamara Hendrickson (responding to yesterday’s post):  “My mom has a bumper sticker that says ‘Proud Member of the Religious Left.’  I’ve always loved it.”

☞ Blessed are the meek.  Turn the other cheek.  Love thy neighbor.  Judge not lest ye be judged.  Cut taxes on billionaires.  Cut Medicaid.  Bomb Iraq.  Increase corporate power.  Religion confuses me.  All I know for sure is that the market is closed tomorrow for Good Friday.

BRAVE NEW WORLD . . .

I mean really — have you seen the video at the end of this piece about Google’s still-in-development glasses?  I suppose they could become the next Segway — not quite the revolution that was planned.  Maybe people will prefer to wait for the implant: Google Brain.  And maybe the glasses won’t interact with us as effortlessly as the video suggests — certainly Siri on my iPhone is nothing if not erratic in her flashes of  comprehension.  But can you watch the demo and not be intrigued? And excited?  (And perhaps a little exhausted?) What a time to be alive.  We have hot water!  And soon, maybe, these.

. . . IF ONLY WE CAN SUSTAIN IT

The thing is, with all the dazzle and comfort and luxury so many of us enjoy (electricity! zippers!) — many of them all but unimaginable until the last few generations — there’s also the growing risk we will hurtle off the rails.  Here’s one cautionary analysis: MIT researchers predict ‘global economic collapse’ by 2030.  We’re not on a sustainable path.  As a species, we need to take control of our future and make sensible decisions.  Our friends on the right who believe that the free market — unburdened by taxes and regulation, unguided by broad long-term goals — will solve all . . . or who believe that The Rapture is coming, so what difference does it make anyway? . . . and who increasingly distrust science . . . are not the ones to lead the way forward.

BACON!

So I mentioned the amazing carmelized bacon hors d’oeuvres a friend serves (“death on a platter,” as I called them), and one of you, generously describing himself as “my biggest fan,” wrote asking for the recipe.

I refused.  “Why on earth would I want to kill off my biggest fan?” I wrote back.  “The truth is, I have no idea how to make them – just really thick bacon squares baked (I guess) in loads of brown sugar. Truly evil.”

He then went and found the recipe (thanks, Bill!):

Carmelized Bacon via Paula Deen

Ingredients:

1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar

2 teaspoons chili powder

8 slices thick-cut bacon

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Line a rimmed baking sheet with aluminum foil. Set a cooling rack inside the prepared pan and set aside. In a shallow dish, combine the brown sugar and chili powder. Dredge the bacon slices in the brown sugar mixture and arrange the bacon on the rack. Bake in the preheated oven until crisp, about 20 minutes. Transfer to a serving plate and serve.

Another of you sent this amazing recipe for bacon taco shells (thanks Kevin).

And yet another of you found this article on bacon coffins (thanks, Mark).

Which – seeing their $2,995 price tag – reminded me that I had been meaning to offer you this sad money-saving tip:

THE FRUGAL EXIT

Aka:  “If the bacon squares do kill you.”

We are conditioned to feel guilty caring whether a casket costs $4,500 or $995; an urn, $350 or $129.  And look: I don’t begrudge funeral home workers a good living — this can’t be easy work.  Still, it’s probably tougher on the owners than the employees, and I’ll bet they get more of the markup.

In any case, bestpricecaskets.com is open 24/7 and advises:

Do Not Tell The Funeral Home About Purchasing Our Casket Before You Get Their Itemized Funeral Price List. Call Us Before Talking to ANY Funeral Home, Because Everything You Tell the Funeral Home Affects Your Funeral Pricing. We will tell you what to say.

It Is Federal Law: Funeral Homes MUST receive our caskets and NOT charge you any extra fees! This cuts your funeral cost by up to 80%. We supply funeral homes and we also sell directly to you! Same Price. Buy Direct.

All because you ate too many bacon taco shells.

THANK YOU, GROVER NORQUIST

Following up from yesterday, may I say one more thing about Grover Norquist?

Things were pretty good in the Nineties: low unemployment and an economy pretty much in balance, with everyone getting richer and our National Debt shrinking relative to the size of the economy as a whole.

But thanks to Grover Norquist, things are even better now. Sure, we’re on the brink of national bankruptcy, politically paralyzed, and a third of us are below, at, or barely above the poverty line . . . but we have lower taxes! And if we’re rich, much lower taxes. God forbid we ever make the mistake of going back to a Nineties-style economic balance. The Republicans are all but unanimously pledged to make sure we never do.

IN CASE YOU LIKE NEWT

The new Republican front-runner. Yes, there was the thing about pressing his second wife for a divorce while she was in the hospital. But this is mainly about hucksterism. Pretty devastating – here.

DEPT. OF IRONY

“We have candidates for President now saying that government can’t create jobs. These are guys with government jobs. They’re ON THE GOVERNMENT PAYROLL. Saying government can’t create jobs. Government created YOUR job.” – Lawrence O’Donnell, MSNBC

APRICOT JELL-O

If you ever find yourself in a situation where you’re allowed to eat JELL-O, but not red JELL-O – or even if you don’t – I have pretty wonderful news for you: apricot JELL-O. It’s really good (lemon-lime JELL-O is punishment no one deserves) and you can go even crazier and mix it with Haagen-Dazs peach sorbet. I know a thing or two about cooking.

ENERGY INDEPENDENCE

Twenty-three thrilling minutes from Amory Lovins.

Ultra-lighting saves half the weight and half the fuel – like finding a Saudi Arabia under Detroit. And the stuff absorbs 12 times as much crash energy per pound as steel, so our lighter vehicles would also be safer. The efficiencies in car-making would make the overall ultra-lighting free.

And that’s just the first 10 minutes.

Watch!

KIWI

If you don’t know kiwifruit, today is your day. Granted, I try to “eat local” – it’s mostly about apples this time of year. New Zealand is not exactly next door. But at 50 cents each, and nearly twice the size I’m used to seeing (I just put one on my postage scale: 5 ounces, so 10 cents an ounce, so $1.60 a pound), and soooooo good – well, let’s hear it for the farmers of New Zealand.

And here’s all you do: (1) Buy ’em. (2) Refrigerate ’em. (3) Once they’re cold, cut ’em into quarters “the long way,” from nub to nub. (4) Slurp ’em. Which is to say, hold each quarter in your hand as if it were a tiny watermelon wedge and go to town, leaving only the “rind,” which in this case is the thin brown skin.

Fine points:

• Don’t refrigerate unless/until they’re ripe, which is to say there’s some give when you press your thumb into them. In my experience, they can never really get too ripe.

• They last a long time once you do refrigerate them.

• It’s probably fine, if a little fuzzy, to eat the skin, too, but then you’d have to consider washing them. This is much simpler: cut, slurp, toss, repeat.

• They’re green inside! Isn’t that cool? This is one big berry!

• They’re filled with vitamin C, potassium, and vitamin E. (The skin I just tossed is apparently rich with antioxidants.)

• If you’re allergic to latex, pineapples, or papaya, beware – you may also be allergic to kiwifruit.

• Oh, okay – eat the skin, too. According to this, it’s really good for you.

Now watch Amory.

SHUCK-A-KHAN

Sarah Johnson: “Maybe this is yet more proof I’m not a guy! My shucking method is as follows (works on ALL shellfish): Locate MetroCard, go to Grand Central Station and walk down the ramp to the Oyster Bar. Sit at marble counter and order. Eat when shucked shellfish arrives. Added benefit? I get to watch someone else do hard work perfectly. I love to observe a job well-done!”

Eddie B.: “As a lifelong clammer I have tried many different ways to shuck bivalves. Here’s my favorite: Take an old-style can opener, the kind with a point on it that punches triangular openings in cans. Insert it into the hinge at the backside of the clam. Push firmly while rotating it slightly along its long axis (like you’re drilling back and forth). The tip will work its way into the hinge and eventually the edges will force the shells (valves) apart. Insert the clam knife, or even a butter knife, and scrape the two adductor muscles holding the shells together. Enjoy. Your smashing method certainly works, but you lose the liquor and don’t end up with presentable shells. Also, 5 minutes on the grill will pop ’em right open. Brush with a dab of whatever you like (butter, garlic, salt) and roast for another couple of minutes.”

MORE MUNGER

Skip Sherrod: “You write, ‘He [Munger] is one Republican who favors keeping Social Security just as it is.’ How anyone could favor keeping Social Security ‘just as it is’ is beyond me. The idea was actuarially unsound from the get go and in its present form will be financially unsustainable for future generations. Those I.O.U.s in the Social Security Trust Fund may be counted as assets, but we can’t pay benefits with them. Lord knows there have been enough impending Social Security crisis warnings issued to choke a goat.”

☞ Well, when a super-no-nonsense self-made Republican billionaire takes this view, I’d suggest you not dismiss it out of hand.

The Clinton budget “surpluses” George W. Bush told us were “our money” that we should demand back as tax cuts (mainly for the best off among us) were in large measure not surpluses at all, but cash to be set aside for the Trust Fund. Not as in securities as Merrill Lynch, but as a strong national balance sheet, with low National Debt, that would allow the debt to rise as needed, somewhat, to meet these obligations. Hence President Clinton’s parting theme, as he handed the surplus to his successor: “Save Social Security First.” Meaning: before you spend the surplus on other things, like wars of choice, or squander it on tax cuts for folks who are getting by just fine already. Instead, the Republicans did squander it. Hugely imprudent, huge problem, and I hate that enough Democrats went along to allow it – but tax cuts, once proposed by the chief executive, are very hard to vote against.

All that said, my guess is that Charlie Munger’s off-the-cuff “just as is” wouldn’t preclude a little tinkering around the edges other type I’ve written about in the past. That’s all it would take to get the benefits in line with the demographics. (1) I’d keep 62 as the age for early retirement. But, where currently the full-benefits retirement age rises one month per year to 67 in 2027, I would let it keep rising to 69 in 2051. (Hey: “Seventy is the new fifty-five.”) (2) Where the 6.2% tax rate you and your employer each pay drops to zero on wages above a certain cap, I’d have it drop to 1% instead. Annoying, but not a killer. (And worth paying so that grandma – much as we love her – doesn’t have to move in.) (3) I’d keep raising benefits with inflation. But for higher-income recipients, I’d calculate those benefits based on price inflation, not wage inflation, in years when prices rose slower than wages. Bang: you’re done. A bit of pain around the edges, with plenty of time to prepare for it, and the Social Security problem is solved.

CLINTON GLOBAL INITIATIVE – IMAGINE PEACE

Perhaps the best session was this one you can watch with President Clinton moderating a panel with the Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority, the Israeli President, and the Crown Prince of Bahrain.

BILL CLINTON ON JOBS

And, as suggested earlier this week, take a few minutes to watch what President Clinton had to say after the Daily Show ran out of time last Thursday – this is the part that only the studio audience (and now you, via the web site) got to see – two 8-minute clips.

DON’T ASK/DON’T TELL

What a disappointment to fall just shy of the 60 required votes. But with the President, the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the House of Representatives, a majority in the Senate, 64% of the Republican electorate and 80% of Democrats all favoring repeal – and with a Federal Disrtrict Court just having ruled the current law unconstitutional – I think we’ll find a way to have open service sooner rather than later. Stay tuned.

TTT

This one only seemed to drop yesterday. Suggested here earlier this month, TTT is now trading ‘ex-dividend,’ meaning that anyone who buys it now will not get the imminent dividend, which in this case is not cash but, rather, a quarter share of KHDHF for each TTT share. So at 6.80, your shares are really worth 6.80 plus 1/4 of 7.60, or about 8.70. I’m holding on.

SHUCKING LIKE A GUY

Finally!

Last Wednesday, we microwaved corn: Zap, shuck, eat.

Today (how much corn could a dumb cluck shuck if a dumb cluck could shuck corn?) we turn to clams.

SHUCKING LIKE A GUY

Here’s how you’re supposed to shuck clams. Simple, elegant – and I totally couldn’t get it to work, so I invented my own method:

1. Be sure to buy cherrystone clams. They’re big and delicious and a third the price of oysters. Little Neck clams are just annoying. There’s a reason they’re called little. Maybe if you’re a seagull they fill the bill*, but not if you’re a human.
2. Be sure they are all happy. The way to know is that they are tightly shut. If someone tries to sell you a clam that’s already open, and possibly smelly, it’s likely a clam that’s passed on to his or her reward. Take no chances.
3. Clean the shells (“with a stiff brush,” say all the guides) because there could be bacteria on the outside that could infect an open wound, like the one you could inflict on yourself trying to open them. And now you are ready to shuck the first one.
4. Wrap it in a dish towel of some sort . . .

“Not my towels!” Charles shouts from the next room.

5. Grab a heavy skillet . . .

“Not my cast iron skillet!” Charles has now appeared for emphasis.

6. Wait for Charles to leave and strike the towel flatly, with authority. [Important: you are not trying to smash the clam, just shuck it. A hammer is too specific; a flat skillet is perfect.]
7. Remove any large pieces of shell, open the now completely acquiescent clam (far too dazed to feel any pain) and enjoy.

That’s it.

Before eating a clam, be sure its liquor is clear, not milky.

ALTERNATE MOLLUSKATION

Here’s how you steam them. Mmmm, mmmm! No shucking required.

But you could also freeze them – just a little, for less than an hour, so their muscles go numb (again, don’t worry: for them it’s like getting stoned) – and they should open enough on their own for you easily to insert the shucking knife as demonstrated by Legal Seafoods’ head chef in the very first link, above.

Or you could do the really smart thing and arrive at the Ocean Grill bar Sunday through Thursday night at 9:30pm, after which the oysters, clams and shrimp are shucked to order, half price.

*Da BUM bum.

DEMOCRATS.ORG

Check out the revamped democrats.org, launched yesterday. There’s a lot there, including links to articles like this encouraging report from Time on the stimulus:

. . . Yes, the stimulus has cut taxes for 95% of working Americans, bailed out every state, hustled record amounts of unemployment benefits and other aid to struggling families and funded more than 100,000 projects to upgrade roads, subways, schools, airports, military bases and much more. But in the words of Vice President Joe Biden, Obama’s effusive Recovery Act point man, “Now the fun stuff starts!” The “fun stuff,” about one-sixth of the total cost, is an all-out effort to exploit the crisis to make green energy, green building and green transportation real; launch green manufacturing industries; computerize a pen-and-paper health system; promote data-driven school reforms; and ramp up the research of the future. “This is a chance to do something big, man!” Biden said during a 90-minute interview with TIME.

For starters, the Recovery Act is the most ambitious energy legislation in history, converting the Energy Department into the world’s largest venture-capital fund. It’s pouring $90 billion into clean energy, including unprecedented investments in a smart grid; energy efficiency; electric cars; renewable power from the sun, wind and earth; cleaner coal; advanced biofuels; and factories to manufacture green stuff in the U.S. The act will also triple the number of smart electric meters in our homes, quadruple the number of hybrids in the federal auto fleet and finance far-out energy research through a new government incubator modeled after the Pentagon agency that fathered the Internet. . . .

☞ And speaking of the government-seeded Internet, democrats.org has a link to the iPhone app I’ve been mentioning that lets you join our army of door-to-door canvassers, tells you which doors to knock on, and receives your report on the results of your door-knocks to enhance our database (and keep people from having their doors knocked on too much). Pretty amazing grassroots tools, neighbor to neighbor. All in an effort to keep the country moving forward toward a brighter future.

RANDOM COOKING TIPS

Just because ketchup turns brown and is a couple of years past its expiration date doesn’t mean it’s not basically fine. It just means you have been unaccountably restraining your ketchup consumption. (Why? Ketchup makes almost anything better! Try it on salmon! Try it with peanut butter and bacon! Try it on tomato slices!) Or else it means you bought several cases at once, on sale, as an investment. Nicely done.

You could shuck an ear of corn, spend a whole lot of time waiting for a pot of water to boil, drop in the corn and wait a few minutes more. Or you could just zap it for two minutes, shuck and eat. (If God did not intend corn to be cooked this way, why would He have invented microwaves?)

Tomorrow: Shucking Like a Guy