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United States, North Carolina, Carrboro, English, Paul, Male, 56-60, All Music, All Food.

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Friday, February 13, 2004

Grind ‘em up good, pitch ‘em in the brew (I added 1 teaspoon kosher salt and a tablespoon of the dried oregano too), let it simmer about another half hour. I’m gonna rest it then (refrigerated) and have already started the chilidog.           8:46:30 PM    comment []

This is a tablespoon (yes, tablespoon!) each of cumin and coriander seeds toasting in a nicely-cured iron skillet over high heat. When it gets so nice and aromatic that you want to jump in the pan with them and they start popping and jumping like they want to get out, it’s time to dump them into the bowl. Let them cool a minute before grinding.   Then make yourself a chilidog.   8:30:16 PM    comment []

Just stirred the mess; 2 cans diced tomatoes, 2 red onions, 10 jalapenos, and one pasilla. It’s at the one hour mark and the heat is at “1,” one step abobe “LO” – as in “LO! -. And behold. A mighty throng of angels descended!!” Will try to get the cumin and coriander roasted, mortared and feathered pestled, but I’m workin’ up a mighty hunger for a chilidog. 8:18:50 PM    comment []

For right now, one pasilla looks adequate. I'll let this simmer an hour (it's already been on the burner for another) and then rest it overnight in the fridge. 8:03:53 PM    comment []

About half of the peppers have been cast like bread upon the waters and the rest will follow soon. Nothing new here in the prep. Cut the top off the pepper, slice in half lengthwise, remove the seeds with a spoon, slice thinly lengthwise, then dice each half group of slices.   I put Bobby Darin on the wireless album thingie for entertainment while I was doing this, but my musical experience was interrupted by high frequency bursts of sound. “Shit,” I thought, “I’m getting 2.4 GHz interference, probably from a neighbor’s router or a wireless phone." Blame the new component, the wireless digital receiver. So I switched to the straight up CD. Then there was another chirp. I moved around the room, it seemed to be coming from one of the rear speakers. I switched to FM, which doesn’t use any rear channels. “Chirp!” – “Shit!” I turned off the receiver completely. “Chirp!” – “hmmmm.” The chirps occurred about once a minute by my bookshelf. “Hmmmm.”   The smoke alarm! Yes! I took the battery out and the chirps stopped. I’d taken down that smoke alarm long ago, tired of “false positives” from bread baking. It needs a new battery! The wireless receiver is exonerated.   Remember that funny story near the end of the Reagan Administration, how they fumigated the whole damn White House like THREE TIMES because Ron & Nancy complained about “crickets” that kept them awake at night. That too was a smoke alarm and I truly believe that the petrochemical saturation of it is responsible for the strange and inexplicable behavior of all the White House residents ever since – but at least The Gipper only killed a few innocent bugs because of a false assumption, he didn’t go completely gonzo and make war on his contemporary hallucination of an Evil Empire.  But he still bears responsibility for nearly every Presidential fuckup since. In my house, when the smoke detector fails, I just change the battery - it’s cheaper and nothing has to die! Problem Determination, “PD” – it’s a way of Life!   Find the problem and fix it - don't go off half-cocked with a revolver and a mouthful of patriotic rhetoric. 7:36:51 PM    comment []

The red onion, chosen because it’s especially pungent and tangy. My chopping process on all onions now is to slice off both end, make a longitudinal incision to ease removal of the dry skin, then latitudinal slices off the ends (to protect the fingers), cut each slice in half, and then cut at radial angles, adjusting for differences in the layers with each cut. There are dudes on cooking shows who delight in dicing quickly by a “process,” after which the onion falls into chunks and the camera pans away, but you never know what the onion looks like on the inside until you slice it. This one, for example is “bifurcated,” and the “process” will result in a mess.  Other hotshots like to rock the chef’s knife from the tip, but when you chop you also crush and a lot of onion essence is left on the cutting board or evaporates into the air. I’d never make it in a professional kitchen because my approach is slower. Treat each slice as an individual and keep the flavor inside. It takes more time, but you’ll rarely cry.   The two onions (a third may be added) were put directly into the sauce pan and the two cans of diced tomatoes were dumped atop, then the mixture will be gradually brought up to heat and the other ingredients added as they are prepared. Next: the peppers.      6:47:20 PM    comment []

Some things for salsa   The slow food salsa is getting a reputation at work and people are asking me for the recipe or outright gifts. That makes me think I’m on to something, so maybe I’d better document the recipe in fixed form before it transmogrifies into something that’s completely different. Besides the stuff you see here, the will be roasted cumin and coriander, paprika (pimenton or Aleppo pepper), at least 10 cloves of garlic, and cilantro. The cilantro in the beer mug will not be going in, it totally disintegrated on Thursday. 5 days looks like the max it can be kept by that method, like a bouquet.   The key to this salsa is the long simmer, 2 hours minimally. I keep the heat as low as possible (with the lid on the first hour) and by the end the Hunt’s Diced Tomatoes (it will be the only brand I buy from now on – firm, flavorful chunks; not a sloppy mess indistinguishable from sauce) caramelize.   Yeah, and inspired by Texas Chili, brown sugar is added near the end. This time I may add tomato juice after all the cooking to make the liquor red and the tomato flavor a contrast of fresh tartness and mature sweetness . Those peppers = jalapenos, a lot of them, 10 in this recipe – the pasillas will spread out the pepper spectrum like a prism. This is some good stuff and I have no secrets (but I’ll also welcome suggestions). 5:45:24 PM    comment []

Since Barbie and Ken have split up, I thought it would be nice to try and fix her up. The Bush Action Figure came to mind, but he’s already attached to the Laura Action Figure and one major breakup is all I can handle for a week. Golly, though, they would look so good together. The Rush Limbaugh Action Figure (“pop in a pill and out comes a lie”) is unattached, but he’s way too old for Barbie. It’s a big week in the news for same-sex partnerships and the Ann Coulter Action Figure would be topical, but maybe we should wait until the controversy subsides so they can get to know each other in a more peaceful atmosphere. Don’t think Mattel would go for that one anyway. They might like the increased profits that an Illuminated Ecstasy accessory would generate if she remains unattached, but costly lawsuits would likely follow when parents discovered what their children were shelling out the allowance dollars for. A nunnery, even one populated with some from Dr. Omed’s Nun Of The Week gallery, is out of the question. With Valentine’s Day on the horizon, she’s got to have a little romance in her life or, minimally be getting a little someplace. I won’t miss Ken, I never liked him, but if ever two dolls were made for each other it’s these two. Maybe they should just reconcile. 4:55:00 PM    comment []

October Surprise   I’ve been trying to avoid quoting mainstream pundits like Paul Krugman since their columns are easily available to anyone who is interested, but today’s column contains a juicy tidbit which Krugman uncharacteristically avoids exploiting:   Just to give you a taste: remember how last year's budget contained no money for postwar Iraq — and how administration officials waited until after the tax cut had been passed to mention the small matter of $87 billion in extra costs? Well, they've done it again: earlier this week the Army's chief of staff testified that the Iraq funds in the budget would cover expenses only through September.   This means another supplemental, like the $87 billion one last year, will have to be be approved just as interest in the elections is peaking, effectively making the elections a referendum on both the Iraq War and budget deficits. Pretty good timing, eh? 5:59:54 AM    comment []