Tag Archives: Cook

Mistaken Identity

Posted on by under blogging, cooking, Family life, Food, Humor, life, marriage
a small plate with a serving of mashed potatoes

For those who don’t already know, my eyesight is … well, let’s just call it unpredictable.

Years ago, when I was young and thin, good-looking and not very bright, I made a horrible decision for cosmetic surgery which ended up screwing up my vision for life.  It can’t be corrected, only … I dunno.  Accounted for, I suppose.  I have to sort of average it out.  So, anyway, long story short, I have really poor vision, especially early in the day (whenever that comes for me).

So this morning, I stumbled out of my bed and got started with my job hunt and things like that.  I spent some time online with blogs and Twitter and whatnot.  Then I got the kids fed and decided to have something to eat myself.  Not a major decision for most people, but lately, food and I aren’t getting along very well and I have to walk on eggshells with it.  So on tenterhooks I go to the fridge for something tummy-friendly to eat.

And there, nestled in a black plastic container from a favorite local Chinese delivery joint with the clear plastic lid covered in condensation, is a pile of what looks for all the world like my wife’s amazing twice-baked potato filling.  She’s made some pretty amazing stuff of late – twice baked potatoes being a favorite for the kids and me – and some of it managed to be left over.  So I thought I hit the jackpot.

I peel the lid off the container and set it on loose, to allow the steam to escape while I re-heat what will eventually be a bowl of creamy mashed potatoes.  I’m considering digging for the leftover chicken that went with it too, as I pop it in the microwave and tick the timer over to two minutes.  It’s a large heap, so I figured I’d start with two minutes and if it’s still cold in the middle I can zap it a few more seconds and see how that does it.  But I want to be careful, because I don’t like how the microwave alters food, so I don’t want to ruin this delicious lunch I’m prepping.

I catch a glimpse of one of the many makeshift cookie jars my wife has, and see it’s been left apart from the others on the counter.  Intrigued – because I’m famished at this point – I open the lid and see the sugar cookies she made for the kids to decorate last night.  Good stuff – not too sweet, not heavy, great texture.  I decide against sneaking one, though.  Again, I’m set on those spuds.  Don’t wanna mess it up for myself.

I give up on the chicken idea and return my attention to the microwave, as the final seconds wind down.  And I’m still smelling those sugar cookies even though the lid’s securely placed back on the jar.  Hm.  Interesting.  The pleasant, sort of starchy scent is a bit doughy considering they were mixed and baked last night.  And my wife stored the leftover cookie dough, so it’s not out on the counter turning rancid.

So what’s with the smell?

The electronic chirp of the microwave cries at me and I pull the black container out of the chamber.  But something’s … not quite right.  No, not right at all.

The lid of the container, set atop the black plastic bowl, is pushed up and aside a little.  The potatoes under it seem to have … to have grown somehow, like some mutating blog monster from a bad 50s Sci-Fi movie.  They’ve … expanded.  Bloomed.  And as the steam slowly drifted around the edges of the circular plastic lid, it almost looked like it was breathing.  Exhaling.

Then I caught that odor, that smell.  A starchy, floury smell, like sniffing into a bag of … well, flour.  All purpose flour.  The kind you’d use to make …

Oh, no.

No, no, no!

Nooooooooooo!

Rip the lid aside, take a big sniff.  Yep, it’s this stuff.  This … this is not twice-baked potato filling.  Not at all.  No, this … this is …

… cookie dough.  The leftover cookie dough from the night before.

I shove a spoon into the puffy mixture and more steam escapes.  I stir, wild, vigorous cranks of the spoon, trying to get the dough down, down, cool, dammit, cool off!

Finally I slam the lid back onto the container and stuff the still-hot plastic back into the fridge.  A few hours, yeah, yeah, just a few hours and it’ll be all right, it’ll be fine, two minutes, c’mon, how much damage can two minutes do?  It didn’t harden, I could still stir it, who’s gonna notice, right?  Right?

Right?

-JDT-

All original content © 2009 DarcKnyt
ALL rights reserved.

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How was Your Weekend?

Posted on by under barbecuing, cooking, Family life, grilling, hobbies, holidays, life, random thoughts, travel
Beef and Corn on a Charcoal BBQ grill

I’m posting this on Monday, September 7, 2009, even though I know a good number of my readers are still on their long weekend. You’ll probably be back tonight, unless you’re like me and try to take an extra day around the three-day weekends to extend them. (That’s back when I had a job, though.) So here’s a welcome home just in case you’re not doing anything today and want something to read.

Since it’s sort of a throw-away post, I’ll keep it simple. How’d your weekend go? Did you get the things done you’d planned on? Did your plans go as well and smoothly as you wanted? (I hope so!) Did you have a barbecue over the weekend, or are you having one today?

Our family, the Darcs I mean, doesn’t have any celebratory traditions we can think of, and most of the time we’re struggling for one reason or another.  So today’s just another day for us.  No special plans, nothing we had to do or places we had to be.  (That’s a good thing in my book.  :) )  But lots of you do have traditional celebrations for holidays, and if you do, I for one am interesting in knowing what they are.  Did you create a new tradition this weekend?  Something you did which you enjoyed enough to want to do every year?  Some food you threw on the grill which will become a staple of your backyard barbecue celebrations from now on?

As for grilling, I am of the belief nothing makes meat taste better than fire.  I prefer charcoal grills to gas ones, but it’s hard to beat the convenience of gas.  I like experimenting with different types of methods for using our grill, but alas, it’s not always something I get to do.  Lazy and life often get in the way.  This past year, it’s been both.  and my focus has been on job hunting for many months, and that’s sort of a damper too.  But we still enjoy our long weekends, which seems weird.

To those who work, I celebrate you today. Happy Labor Day, God bless you, and keep up the good work. Some of us out here envy you your jobs, and I hope you can not only appreciate having a day in your honor to celebrate you doing the job, but can appreciate the job itself, just having one, because it’s easy to take for granted.

Here’s hoping the work week ahead of you is easy and short!

-JDT-

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Makin’ Bacon

Posted on by under blogging, cooking, Food, grilling, life, random thoughts
Bacon frying in bacon grease.

Bacon has personality, I learned this past weekend.

Actually, I already knew some of this, but I think it just occurred to me in glaring clarity this past weekend.  It came crashing home in crystal clear display and for the first time in my life I saw bacon as it truly is, bare of its hiding places and disguises, exposed, naked before me.

Yes, bacon has distinct personalities.  Plural.  There is more than one type of bacon.

First, there is the activist bacon.  This bacon protests the exploitation of bacon for use as food for humans.  It chooses to voice its dissatisfaction and disgruntled displeasure in non-violent, peaceful ways.  But it’s as difficult as it can be without rendering harm to anyone.  This is bacon which flops and twists in unexpected, difficult to manage ways when you try to flip it.  It will twist at the “waist”, so that one side of the bacon remains uncooked, and when you try to force the uncooked portion down, the other portion will flop and flip and twist in the most pathetic, irritating way possible.  This bacon seeks to make your experience with bacon so unpleasant you’ll never consider using bacon again.  The goal is to ruin your bacon association.  To make you balk and pass on bacon in the store as the protestor’s demonstration and PITA tactics call to your mind.  This bacon believes no matter how good it tastes it has the ability to turn you off of bacon forever, and if you succeed in cooking it, its ideals will spread, hopefully to your children as well as to other rashers of bacon, to indoctrinate a new generation of protestor bacon and people who are ingrained with how difficult bacon can be.  “No, I won’t flip!  You can’t make me!  You’re the establishment and I won’t cooperate!”  This bacon turns itself inside out, and may even injure or destroy itself as it attempts to stop you from successfully cooking it.  “You can cook me, but you can’t stop the movement!  We will overcome!  We will persevere!  We will not be made into your sandwiches, side dishes and garnishes!” The activist bacon thinks other bacon seeing its actions will be spurred into similar action, or at least made to feel guilty for not taking action, and will quietly succumb to its demands.  Activist bacon doesn’t realize how laughed at it is by other bacon slices, how disdained it is in normal, everyday bacon circles, and how little impact its actions truly have … in short, this bacon’s pretty irrelevant, no one cares, and in the end, it ends up as cooked and eaten as any other slices in the package.  But it’s going to make your life miserable in the process.

Second, there’s the illegal immigrant bacon.  This is bacon which sneaks into the package unnoticed, takes a place in the pan among the other rashers, but then refuses to do anything to be assimilated into bacon culture.  It won’t turn the same color, doesn’t cook at the same rate, and won’t cooperate and try to learn the language of the pan.  No, it wants the pan to learn the bacon language, and allow the bacon to remain just as it was in its packaging.  But it wants all the prestige and honor of the other, cooked bacon.  It wants all the benefits of being bacon in the pan, with grand and alluring aroma, succulent taste, mouth-watering appearance, but it wants those things to be given to it without having to do any of the other things the rest of the bacon has to do.  And, when you try to move or turn the bacon, it clings to the pan, screaming loudly for immunity, amnesty, it’s “rights” as bacon with all the other bacon in the pan, and won’t come cleanly off the metal surface.  Even in non-stick pans this bacon slice will hang on, force you to perhaps tear it, at which point it will cry for media attention about cruelty and injustice and show its injuries … and never tell how difficult and rude it was, how aggressive and demanding, how it forced the cook’s hand and utensil.  No, it wants to have a sob story while it clings to the pan and says it won’t go, it won’t leave, it deserves to be here and be treated just as all the legal bacon.  And, if it does rip into multiple pieces, it will scream all the harder: “Look!  I’ve had offspring!  In your pan! The children I’ve made are citizens of the pan and have all the rights of the pan coming to them!” Eventually, the cook will work the bacon free and it ends up the same as the others, but it’s always a challenge.  Always.

Finally, there is the terrorist bacon.  We’ve all encountered this bacon.  There’s a cell member in every package ever purchased.  You know the type – unassuming, seems normal, might even be a little more meaty and appealing than most other bacon slices.  You put it in the pan with the other slices, and everything’s going along swimmingly.  Then, you reach in to turn the bacon and … it strikes!  An explosion, loud, sudden, spraying bacon spatter and grease far and wide in the kitchen.  The porcine shrapnel flies farther than you could imagine, spraying bacon debris across your range and, if the plan was successfully executed, your person.  This is bacon with a suicide mission, with an ideology of hatred, declaring war on anyone and anything trying to cook bacon, eat bacon, or even in the vicinity of the pan.  This is bacon intent on destruction, and it’s looking to take out as many cooks and appliances and other rashers of bacon as possible when it goes.  It’s indiscriminate in its actions and doesn’t care about collateral damage.  This bacon’s not interested in reason, outcome, or peace.  It wants death and lots of it.  Preferably yours.

Still, for all the degrees of extremism in the pan, most bacon is pretty middle-of-the-road, ordinary, unconcerned and uninvolved bacon.  It sits nicely in the pan and cooks up delicious and ready for use, whether nestled snugly in a luxuriant bed of mayonnaise, lettuce, tomato and bread, or laid gently beside its longtime friend eggs.  Most bacon, the vast majority, in fact, is just bacon.

And despite the efforts of the others, this is the bacon we all remember when we think of bacon.  And we’ll always eat it.

Yum.  Bon appétit.

-JDT-

All original content © 2009 DarcKnyt
ALL rights reserved.

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