Monday, September 02, 2002

I'd like to thank Memorex, Linksys, and Mad Dog Multimedia for the total of $40 in rebates they'll be sending me for 40x CDRs, a 10/100 NIC, and a 16x DVD-ROM respectively. It's gonna take a big chunk out of that $70 I'll need for that K7T Turbo2 I want. The K7T 266 PRO-R is strange, I can't find an online manual for the jumper to get me into the BIOS, and the silkscreening on the board is just a blur to my presbyopic eyes. Every time I boot, it tries to redetect my RAID array and there's nothing even connected to those connectors. Also quit running the "Fuzzy Logic" utility 'cause it doesn't like it in XP when you switch users: apparently trying to reload, it can't, then the system reboots when you click "OK". Then it's waiting for "redetect the RAID array". etc., and the XP "Don't Send" when you're back at the desktop. Had to use Task Manager to end the program and uninstall. The worst is probably over now, but it was a hassle for a bit. I've been plugging Harris Teeter because I've been buying their produce this weekend. I linked a couple of times. When I find food deals too good to pass up, I'll link them - no matter where they are. When I can, there'll be recipes. Food Lion is right across the street from me, so a lot of stuff comes from there. Lowe's Food requires a deliberate drive, but it's worth it sometimes for seafood and cat food (now I get a mental picture of feeding the sea from a cat bowl). Kroger's is on the way to work, usually a workday morning stop. Weaver Street is great for herbs 'n' spices, bulk yeast, wine, and cheese selection. Wellspring for hard-to-find gourmet-ish stuff, though it's another deliberate drive. Other places too...these are geographic locations that are part of the food-finding story. Thanks to everyone - there are a lot of things like celeriac or manioc you couldn't find anywhere just a few years back, now they're in chain stores! 6:34:20 PM    comment []

Winding down now. It has been a good Labor Day. Dawn called and won't be able to pick up the filets until tomorrow. Liz is fast asleep on the soda, after an afternoon watching some fun movies: The Royal Tenenbaums on DVD and fragements of The Birdcage on one of the many. many cable movie channels. Is there a Gene Hackman theme here? You Betcha! Though I was kinda impressed that Owen Wilson collaborated on the screenplay for the Tenenbaums. I first noticed him in The Minus Man. Way too talented, eh? Decided to run through two more loaves of bread, the ones made Saturday were just too tasty. Counter to intuition, they go into a 300F oven that then gets cranked up to 400F. Rotate every 6 minutes, so the side at the back don't burn (cheesy oven). A total of 36 minutes. The loaves are quite delicate after the second rise, so you gotta be careful not to bump 'em or they fall. More than doubled in size, they get a nice yeasty flavor that usually doesn't usually happen with fast-acting yeast. It just happened Saturday because I had to go out to Best Buy for some blank CDs and it took me an hour-and-a-half to get back. Any later and the bread would have filled the whole kitchen, it really puffed up. That's the way to do it from now on. 5:32:10 PM    comment []

A couple of months ago, Linens 'n' Things sent me a coupon for 20% off anything in their store. I picked up a Waring Juice Extractor for $80. It rarely comes in handy, but today it did. The stuff in the bottom of the pan for batch II of the roasted tomatoes (garlic, peppers, onions, olive oil) looked like something that would run nicely through the juicer. It did, but made a big mess too. The yield was okay, though, about half a cup of seasoned oil that ought to help make a great salad dressing. The lamb sirloin is very fatty, even after a whole day of smoking. There was about a cup of fat to clean up out of the smoker's catcher (one of the nice things about the Bradley...there's a removable sloped tray that catches all the drippings and channels them to metal dish. That same dish, filled halfway with water, catches and extinguishes the burned-out smoke "flavour bisquettes". I had a smoker from The Sausage Maker that treated me well for years, but would catch fire every once in a while because if lacked a system like this to handle drippings. It uses a pan that you fill with sawdust that sits directly on an electric range burner. Fat drips to the bottom and may come close enough to the burner to cause problems if you go over 180F. The Bradley has a heating element in the back and the bisquette burner is below the collector tray. A better design, IMO. If only those derned bisquettes weren't so expensive!). I used a food slicer to cut the lamb into bacon-sized strips. It resembled streaky bacon in another way - lotsa fat. 1:01:18 PM    comment []

Harris Teeter came through again, this time with tomatoes for roasting. They were the closest store open at 5am. I also picked up a quart of EV olive oil, having used a whole one in the last week. I'm using more oil than my car. This batch, I broke apart a head of garlic and threw the unpeeled cloves in the botton of the roasting pan, along with two halved and seeded peppers, a coarsely-chopped red onion, and a healthy amoint of olive oil. They're in the 300F oven and should be ready after a morning nap. Holidays are good. The people who work overnight at grocery stores are always so polite and friendly. Maybe because they only see a few customers all night long and those are never in a hurry. I know quite a few of them by their first names. Shopping very early is a pleasant experience, unlike getting into a long line that suddenly stalls because of a 20 cent price disagreement. That is stressful and puts a curse on the food. Food purchased when everyone is happy will always taste better, not because of karma, but simply because it is more likely to be prepared in a relaxed and stress-free state of mind. Even without Sauvignon Blanc. 6:08:21 AM    comment []

A nice breakfast might include Clos Du Bois Sauvignon Blanc. Then some leftover french bread, toasted, lightly spread with butter, heavily spread with roasted tomatoes (see yesterday's entry), and some bacon. Three hours in 1/4 inch of EV olive oil at 300F did a mysterious transformation on those tomatoes, one I am inspired to try again,,,,garlic in the oil, red onion chopped, maybe even those colorados from the market. Tomatoes are a cousin to tomato paste - dark red, caramelized, flavor concentrated. Good thing today is a holiday. 4:52:22 AM    comment []