mussel stew,

is delightful!

hot wing, rainy day, bike ride!

Last Sunday I talked Raina into riding down to the Polish fest. The Polish fest is actually this weekend due to my faulty reading of the internet, or perhaps my desire for a pierogi, made in jersey or not. Still needing an Octoberey beer on this beautiful, clear, Oregon day first thing in the fall. we made it in time for happy hour at Fire on the Mountain on interstate and had three dollar beerz and snacks. We had raspberry chili and lime chili cilantro wings, fried pickles and an fried twinkie. le, oink..


As we we nibbled chicken wings it began to rain. At first the "Oregon Spit", that fine spray what precedes the dump, or can sometimes go on for days. As long as it does keep dropping harder and actually does its business in a dramatic manner you know you might have a chance at an almost dry ride home if you wait it out.

We pulled our bikes under a bit of roof and shared another beer waiting for the deluge to end. The rain slowed about the time the beer was gone, and let up long enough for us to hop the train home. The ride from the max stop to my house was fresh and clean under a blue sky filled with cotton fluff clouds. Arriving home mostly dry to send poor Raina off to work perfectly on time.

Jury Doo-Dee..

I am serving on the "Grand Jury". When the cops in the movies say "The Grand Jury has handed down the indictment"? That's a reference to what I am doing for the next two weeks. Surprise.

It's lucky about the two weeks, all the other people who hemmed and hawed about duty ended up with a four week, eight to five stint. When they came to me, I said I was able to serve with no problems.

My thanks to the presiding judge who must have noticed my pale skin and blinking sun shocked eyes, and let me take the last two weeks of another juror's term they were unable to finish. A two week term of ten to five thirty. Now, who is a lucky Miau-Miau?

My jury (Jury III) does property crimes in the morning and drug crimes in the afternoon. I sit in a little room with these six other people that is Classic Institutional Beige, but with pretty comfy black chairs, a fridge and boiling hot water for tea! I also got this nice lanyard thing that lets me in the employees entrance.

This is how my day goes: The District Attorney working the case comes in the door and tells us about the charges and a little back ground, they then bring in witnesses and at the end the officer who took the report or was there for, or solved the crime comes in and gives us his story. We handle about eight or nine of these cases a day. Some where around one o'clock they give us a two hour lunch.

The cops really do catch things while they are happening, but they all seem to be the stupid crimes. Or crimes so stupid they worked for the criminal and they repeated the scheme until they eventually got caught. Tales of amazing criminal stupidity! I guess speed just rots what little brain the users are using.

Different cops, different people, different story. It's actually very interesting, these sordid stories I help the judicial system adjudicate. But I do wish the pay was better. Ten bucks for the first three days and twenty five a day for the rest. That's almost, an almost new fridge.

Winoz United!

This weekend was the:

Astoria Warrenton Crab & Seafood Festival!

The family (and friends) try to make it up there every year for a bit of camping and wining. It's a much smaller than the seafood fest in Newport that we started out going to a million years ago, and seems to be much easier to navigate. The lines are about one tenth of what they have down south. Though once again this year we didn't take the shuttle due to it not showing up forever. I even had a few songs ready for the bus:

The winos on the buss go glug, glug, glug, glug glug glug, glug, glug, glug
The winos on the buss go glug, glug, glug, as soon as the wine is open!

And,

If you're a wino and you know it clap your hands!
If you're a wino and you know it clap your hands!
if you're a wino and you know it then the wine stains will show it
If you're a wino and you know it clap your hands!

I had some free time before the trip and decided to make up a few of wine glass holders for friends and family, and of course I made a ton of them not knowing who was going to show up. I sold off a few at the show!

Sake girl wanted one!

and people in nascar tuxes wanted one..

Lony's wife wanted one! but ran into my mom and borrowed hers till they could find me to get her own. so she had two for a while..! its hard to take pictures of winos!

nice guy who liked kitties wanted one too!



Maybe next year I'll get a booth!

"o ti mangi questa menestra o ti butti dalla finestra"

You can eat this soup, or jump out the window.

Following along in my obsession with memoirs in recipe, I add this to my list of good reads. Clara is a feminist revolutionary, working for womens rights and the commies in Italy during the 60's. Though her recipes are mostly frugal she comes from a well to do Italian Jewish family. Most of her recipes can be recreated for under five bucks. Here are at least four ways to use canned tuna in oil..

Mimes in black and white..

The children of pardise, or Les Enfants du Paradis, or Boulevard du Crime

Who could make up drama like this today and pull it off? No one..

He meets She when she is accused of a crime and falls in love with her. she whos mother died at 15 forcing her to grow up fast on the streets of paris with out family or friend. She has no home since she lost it when she quit her last "job" and he takes her to his lodgings and gets her a room, unfortunately it's next to an actor with whom she is already acquainted. But he loves her still and gets her a job in his theater where he works as a MIME! and a good mime, not just the stuck in a box, pulling a rope mime, but whom eventually becomes the most famous mime in France, and possibly the world.

Unfortunately she has a very nasty thief friend who get her to get him a room in her lodgings then mugs a messenger whom they think is carrying money and once again the bad girl gets the shaft, and the gendarmes are getting ready to take her in when she whips out a card given to her by a count at the theater, and ends up running off with him. Hussy, or poor?

The mime then marries a girl from the theater. The Poor dear has a boy child with him, but he is still in love with the baaad girl who is long gone with the count.

The thief kills the actor and the the bad girl goes back to the count. and the mime is left fighting through the streets at carnival time where everyone is dressed in his mime costume, chasing her carriage. while his wife and child watch his futile race. Men are stupid.

The end.

Mimes kinda piss me off in general, but I liked this one, he didn't follow people around and try to give them pretend balloons...

someone elses quote of the day..

"I get up every morning determined to both change the world and to have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning the day difficult" -E.B. White

I love Artichokes..

I remember the first one I ever tried. I was about fifteen and my B.F.F.L. Miss J. turns up with an artichoke she steamed instead of her usual Top Ramen hot pot. It seemed only a few minutes before she was showing me how to dip the torn edge in mayonnaise, and to scrape the greenness off the silvery leaves with my teeth. When she made it to the heart it was all I could do not to run to the store and buy more..

These days I make up a bit of mayo and a lemon herb butter. Often after steaming I cut them in half, oil lightly and grill for the last few minutes. It seems to add the lightest hint of darkness to the tangy thistle.

I planted a globe artichoke plant last year and am hoping to get a 'choke or three this season. The way the economy is going it might be the only way I can get them..

Its my Birthday!

I decided I needed to get my nerd on at the Retro arcade for this years birthday celebrations! Nathan made me a flier, and I made my self a Rice Krispie Treat Centipede..

I actually tripled the recipe provided on the Rice krispi dot com site. It actually used an entire large box of krispies two bags of marshies. I planned to use a couple to make mushroom things but ended up not having enough room for them on the board.

I sprayed my hands with oil to help nonstick me but found that a few drops of water worked better. I did have to redip every other ball or two. I was worried I might make them gooey, but they were the usual perfectly treaty goodness.

I used violet Wilson food dye and a few jelly war heads as decoration and sour straws for legs, and antenna. I made 31 pretty good sized portions. All I needed was napkins which made it super easy to hand out. AND no BAKING! Not that I would not love to pop a couple cakes out, and have no idea what the family is going to do when I tell them I can't make cakes this month. I wonder how many R.K. sculptures I can churn out..

Tostinos

While I was in Mexico I was introduced to " Tostinos" Bacon wrapped hot dogs fried and eaten in a bun with mayonnaise, sour cream and salsa.

Nadine picked up a couple of all beef dogs from New Seasons, which I wrapped in two thickly sliced rashers of bacon. They then go into the pan to fry until the bacon is done. I usually like extremely crisp bacon and always over cook. It's a sin which I did not commit this time.

Double roasted salsa from Trader Joe's, Tillamook sour cream, a few jalapeños, and I swear to you it is one of the best dogs ever. How can you go wrong with bacon and really good dogs and a fine slab of smoked pork?

It's sad to think tostino bought on street corners at night in mexico,while squealing hords of half naked sorority sisters and douchie frat boys crush pass each other, each group more glistening and fruity than the last, the faint smell of urine a sharp contrast to the smell of burning fat and spilled beer, that a nameless sausage which may be beef, retrieved from a dark drum of steaming vapor wrapped in what might be pork, smeared with an almost clear aoli like substance on an enriched white bun topped by a thick relish-like salsa spooned out of a tub that reads "Manteca" and a squirt of crema, tastes better than my organic wiener and fancy schmearings. It May have been the tequila..

The bloody mandolin and Cannibals

I picked up and ancient mandolin years and years ago at an estate sale, I also bought a super yummy bottle of scotch for a total of three bucks. I am just in love with the deadly thing! I really try to not drink before I "use" as the blade will remove a pound of flesh before you even notice it. It is a dramatic way to ruin dinner for some people.

I was making stir fried stuff for some veginazi people and sliced off a part of my finger. wine flavored blood gushes from the wound! they all had no problem eating something touched by my meat, kosher or not. These are the same bitches who won't let me cook their food on the "meat tainted parts" for my grill. Human is delightful, just no animals.

Freaks.

After diner tonight, long after I have finished writing the above, Zoey finds "Blood Diner" on TV. According to Miss Z. one of those meat haters (secret lovers) I know, it's one of the finest cannibal movies ever..

Some days I love cable. Other days I know cable sucks my time and energy. If you read the portents right you can understand this universe. Tonight I realized it is a tool for divination like any other thing of chance.

Eating meat is good.

Yellow gold 'tates

There is no baking going on in this house till we get a new oven and cooking this week with out a way to bake has been a trial, but has caused me to dig out a few gadgets I don't normaly use. One of them happens to be the "Fat Daddy Frier" I hijacked from the Mom. Filled with a half gallon of corn oil and heated to a nice 375 I figured we could move through a few spuds. Hopefully as last month I had picked up a bag of yellow gold potatoes from costco. These sweet, juicy, delightful, taters are tiny but really a good choice for frying, fortunately as I have twenty pounds of potatoes.

Buying in bulk is a great idea, while actually using it all seems to be a feat! I made potato salad, and thought about making tater soup till I remembered I don't really like it with out bacon and sour cream and you have to prebake the tubers... so that is out for now though I could toss a few on the grill...

Fry daddy! Filled with boiling oil, ready to remove skin! I pulled out the danger-lin and sliced up a few yellow golds. I tried about 6 different slices from the mandolin, three slices of varying thickness and a few off the shredder. I eventually sliced a few things by hand and tried out my spiral cutter thing "as seen on tv". The spirals I cut appart as they would have stuck together. I was only really limited to the size of my tater.

My favorites where the thinest slice they came out like a tender kettle chip. Tossed with a pinch of sea salt and fresh ground pepper made me wonder why kettle chips are still in business. Then I looked the mess I had made making roast beef aju and fried potatoes.

There was a place in the what is now know as the pearl. biwa, mima, bisu, kapow, I can't remember the name right now, gone for so many years like all the restaurants except for the one that is there now. biwa I am pretty sure it was called had a "taco" that was actually a bit more like a wrap really, served with long skinny fries, well done and crispy with a lightly chewy center, but crisp with a snap almost like a good hebrew national. Golden and sweet crisp with a beautiful piece of tuna. Simple and one of my favorite easy meals in the area. Had the potatoes I used been a little bit bigger I am pretty sure they would have been very close to what I made..

explosions, birds and snow.

Just after I finish taking pictures of a cornish game hen quartet I picked up and almost had cooked to perfection, my stove decided to go Guy Fawkes on me. ?Un/Fortunately I had moved the camera and the tripod out of the way before the element blew. The camera I got off The Craigslist for twenty bucks, in the dark, out side of someones apartment, works great. I just missed all the action with the 35mm.

The wee pidgins , which had been stuffed with herbs from the winter garden, a bit of thyme, oregano and I think a few leaves of parsley, and a slice each of onion and lemon, had to be transfered to the outside grill and cooked via indirect heat for another thirty or forty.

I'm Standing out on my concrete slab in the back yard with a flash light watching the temperature gauge, freezing my arse off it when it starts to snow. Huge downey flakes are falling on my head and I have the grill on mostly high to combat the chill. It's late perhaps eleven o'clock, the streets around me are quiet, "and the only other sound's the sweep of easy wind and downy flake". I spend that 40 minutes thinking about other than electric/gas cooking..

The delicate little birdies were tender and perfect. Dear friend Z taught me how to eat the oysters of the birds. Which means you flip these babies over, and just above the thighs (I call them the back fat on myself) rests a portion of meat that supposedly has the flavor of dark meat, yet texture of the white meat. I found it to be a little more oily than my favorite slice of the bird. But Intriguing as it slid out of the chick like a cork and had the texture of angel food cake.

Green beans and a wild rice mix with an extra black rice dosage, because I like it like that, and some fine chirps. Midnight in snow is a lovely time for dinner. Nothing like a bit of a a frost to help you get your feed on..

food and childhood

Spaghettios! I loved them as a kid, especially with the hot dogs. The other day I woke up craving the O's again. But the last time I had them they were Just disgusting. Sweet tomato sauce and crunchy hot dogs. My sister who works for an organic prepared food company informed me that Annie's made a good "O". After a visit to my local Hippie grocery I picked up a can of tomato-n-cheese bunnies. It was a little harder to find a hot dog with out mechanically separated animals, and settled on Hebrew Nationals. Fine dogs, nice snap and great over the fire.

Funny how some of the breakfasts food that were the morning ritual just don't do it for me. Pancakes, are off my list. Due to the mush factor of the the larger fluffier variety. Yet corn meal mush is still a favorite. Which brings me to my almost favorite breakfast quickie food, which in my family was known as Gas house eggs and later as Toad in the hole. As shown right with a few rashers of bacon. I have no idea why my family calls them toad in the hole. The English have something called a toad in the hole which looks like this odd mix of a Dutch baby/German pancake according to wickipedia I lifted the picture from says:

"..A traditional British dish comprising sausages in Yorkshire pudding batter, usually served with vegetables and gravy. The origin of the name 'Toad-in-the-Hole' is vague. Most suggestions are that the dish's resemblance to a toad sticking its little head out of a hole provide the dish with its somewhat unusual name."

It actually looks great in the picture, and I think I will try to whip up a batch. One can't Go wrong with sausage, Usually. I had bangers in England and they had the flavor of wet paper dipped in pork juice. Those freaky Limeys also cut the crust off toast. Fried tomato and thick slabs of smoked ham make up for it sometimes.

I am still left with the question of correct name for "toad in the hole" I have heard "Popeye egg" and "Eggs in a basket". Gas house eggs under a variety of names has also shown up in books and songs but in the movie "Moon Over Miami" (1941) with Bettey Grable the G.H.E. egg turns up, and with dresses by Travis Banton the film is worth the viewing.

Lunch and breakfast, what about dinner? Has any of the odd things I was fed come with me through the centuries? I never had the chance at many popular prepared foods. We had few canned foods and the barest of refined sugars. My child hood dinners were consistently the meat and potatoes of the 50's. Once in a blue moon The Mom prepared S.O.S. and there was once in a while a hamburger helper type noodle box meal. If we had a baby sitter we were allowed to chose a frozen meal for dinner. My sister would always choose the beanie weenies with the corn and the chocolate fluff pudding cake. I would always choose the turkey dinner with stuffing and cranberry apple thing. I am quite sure I would still eat them if they still tasted the same.

But those staples of my child hood don't taste like that. Skeddi-ohz are not what they were when I was 8, a tomato sugar syrup and some frankensausage in a can. the tinned beef used to make S.O.S. is not easy to find. Finding a hot dog with out sodium nitrate is near impossible (even Gartners adds nitrates!) finding the weiner with out Monosodium glutamate has gotten dramatically easier as the years go by. Things change and things stay the same. There may be nothing nothing better than a simple roast beef with potatoes and carrots.

Books

I wonder how many books I have read, often it seems I pick up books I love just to give them away. My cover less copy of "Perfume", the set of "Chronicles of Narnia" I keep in my toy box. I am the sum of all my parts. Does that mean that I am just a little bit Karen Blixen, and Margueite Duras? maybe? or am I just living through women because I can't live myself in such a dramatic manner.

Here it is a list of books I love. I shall continue to edit as I remember titles.


Out of Africa - Isak Dinesen which reminds me I wanted to pick up a copy of babbette's feast which she wrote also!

The lover, Margueite Duras. she has a couple other fine novels, but I didn't get through the last one I picked up, and I can't remember the name right now if it, something about a woman in love with a gay guy that she pays to watch her sleep.

The Chronicles of Narnina by C.S. Lewis I found this set in the back my mothers closet when I was five. The Lion the witch and the wardrobe was the first book chapter book I read on my own. It took me about a year to get through it but by the time first grade hit I was on to the the second book.

Stranger in a strange land - Robert Anson Heinline, what a freaky guy he must have been, his whole universe is full of poly marriages, group living, fertility birthdays, and incest! bet he was a hoot at parties..

Innocents abroad- Mark Twain, read anything by him, I am reading A Pen warmed up in hell right now.

who else should I invite to the party? someone dramatic, perhaps the guy who wrote High Bonnet, Idwal Jones? I do so want to try his goose in orange and chocolate sauce.

I'm hungry now! More later..

mean while back at the ranch Miss Delna is wipping up a few words on cook books which can be summed up in four words "I love James Beard" its not because he was gay and wrote manly bbq books, it was not because he is from oregon, its not because he was brilliantly snarky, its becuase his American cookery is one of the best cook books ever written. it has everything, well everything they had thought of at that time. Each recipe has its short story, and I believe there are a few thousand in there., I actually have two copies, one for home and one for camping. His recipes for entertaining and "beard on bread" are also brilliant and informative. His recipes always centered around quality of ingredients

Julia Childs (and friends), Mastering The Art of French Cooking, books one and two. I am working though them slowly as these compendiums are huge! The culinary world is a convoluted web of whom knew who, but I believe Point got it right with his "butter butter always more butter" And Darling Julia certainly took that to heart.

I want to read "European Gastronomy Into the 21st Century" by Cailein Gillespie and john A. Cousins, but they don't have it at the Multnomah county library! Good ol Powells has it for 49 bucks, but I bet I can find it used!

Remember kids Julia and James suffered and died from mixes of gout, diabetes and other fun things associated with rich foods and over consumption, so choose your vices well and exercise! what am I saying? Fatties unite! skinny people must be plumped! I am now going to go make some breakfast and crack that last bottle of bubbly, and eat the amazing ham I made for new years! more on that and maybe the secret family recipe if my pop says it can be given out. Something to be said for being the daughter of a butcher. mmmmmmmmmmmmeat!