Why I Hate the Food Network
With my mind on Anthony Bourdain, I thought I'd list some of the things that bother me about the Food Network.
1) Most of the people can't cook. Sometimes this isn't a problem. I'm perfectly willing to watch Sunny Anderson for hours on end simply because I like to daydream about her wrestling Mrs. Neely in a big vat of pudding.
2) Too many competitions, with the main feature of them being that the judges are assholes.
3) Guy Fieri needs to shut the fuck up. Every time he asks someone on DDD to describe how they make something, he inevitably then interrupts them, trying to anticipate each step himself. You fucking asshole! It's some poor schmucks one shot at TV publicity and you won't let him/her explain their own damn food. Shut up you fucking narcissist!
4) Rachael Ray is an idiot. We're watching that show where she toddles around a foreign location, trying to eat on less than $40. It's Belgium! Hey, I like waffles and chocolate! Let's watch!
And I notice something. She eats food, then is unable to say anything even remotely intelligent about it. She basically just smiles and says Yum!
Shit, even Guy can somewhat describe what he likes about the food he's eating. Rachael can, literally, only manage to tell us that it's nummy. Contrast that to a Bourdain description and it makes you want to cry.
5) The Next Food Network Star is an idiotic show. You would think that, if it weren't, the winners would be, I dunno, actual stars now? (Okay, Guy Fieri is a star.
But, get this, not for his cooking show. No, he's famous for his show where he interrupts people and shoves food into his face. The show where he actually cooks is just Emeril-lite with a bad bleach job.) But the shows featuring the winners actually cooking always bomb. Maybe they should rethink the concept.
The show would be much better if they had contestants like this fucking idiot.
Also, if you want to know how rotten these shows are inside, here are two things from the contract that everyone signs, at least for the first season: 1) The winner isn't actually guaranteed a show. They're guaranteed an appearance on a show, any show. That's it. 2) They explicitly reserve the right to edit footage to show you in a misleadingly negative light. Yes, they do come right out and say it.
6) Sandra Lee. Kwanzaa Cake. Nuff said.
No, actually, that's not enough said. In the same episode, she presented her Hanukkah cake that used marshmallows. A non-kosher Hanukkah cake! And she hid the fucking things inside the cake! Surprise!
Norwegian Fusion BBQ
So, I'm taking my daily walk this morning and I started thinking about American culture, or, more accurately, the lack of a truly national culture.
We have a wealth of regional cultures, but we don't have a national one. I don't view that as a problem. I think it's a strength.
But there's a problem. When we export culture to other countries, we try to export a national culture. In other words, we export things like bad TV, Starbucks, and McDonald's. It's bad for the world, because those things are all crap. And it's bad for the US because it makes the world think we're cultural idiots.
Why can't we export regional culture successfully? So I started thinking about something to export and a bulb lit up above my head! Let's export BBQ!
More specifically, I want to sell all my possessions, move to Norway, and open a BBQ shack in Olso. (And eventually in Bergen, Trondheim, Tromsø, and Ålesund.)
Seriously, this is a great idea! Norway doesn't have BBQs. The shack would play up the different regional BBQ styles, not just on the menu, but in the layout and decor.
You could have an area themed after Kansas City. (In what way? I dunno. My only experience with KC is that all the downtown businesses close at 5pm.) Another with a Memphis theme. One for the Carolinas. And, of course, a Texas section.
The menu would reflect this as well. Candy-coated KC dreck, of course. Luscious Memphis dry ribs. Pulled pork with all the Carolina sauces (vinegar, red, and mustard). And Texas brisket.
(By the way, the one true BBQ sauce is mustard-based and called Carolina Gold.
I will not entertain arguments to the contrary. If you don't agree, you're just wrong. Wrong wrong wrong! It's easy to make and I'll send you a recipe if you email me.)
You could play thematic music in each section as well.
And you could also incorporate a sort of Norwegian BBQ fusion cuisine. Instead of baking lutefisk, why not smoke it over some hickory. Hell, slather it with enough KC-style candy sauce and you might not even taste the lye!
Figure out some local wood to replace or supplement hickory.
What about using lefse instead of white bread?
Holy crap, what about rolling pulled pork up in lefse? Damn, that would be good!
You could also be tossing elk and reindeer into the smoker.
One final selling point is that BBQ is cheap food. In a nation where everything is hideously expensive, a BBQ shack could really compete on value. (The only things I've found in Norway that are reasonably priced are art prints of Edvard Munch's work, from the Munch Museum gift shop. Trust me on this one.)
I'm packing my bags!
BBQ Ho!
Just got back from a short business trip to Atlanta. Atlanta is a good place for business meetings. It's a short direct flight for me. And the MARTA can get you from the airport to most places you want to go. (Although, this trip, I had to take a shuttle.)
But, most importantly, you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a BBQ place in Atlanta. Even out in the suburbs, where I was, they're easy to find.
I was only in town for a couple days, so only managed two places, both small-scale chains.
One was Jim 'N Nick's Bar-B-Q. Good brisket. Decent pulled pork. Overly fatty ribs. Wonderful little things they call cheese biscuits.
They're more like really light muffins. Sort of an unsweetened angel food cake studded with tiny pieces of cheese. Yum!
Tried a few of their sides as well. The fried green tomatoes tasted like breading. The baked beans were good, but it's hard to ruin baked beans.
Finally, they had T-shirts that said You can smell our butts for miles.
Later, I was looking for another place to eat, and saw Shane's Rib Shack. You tend to find them in strip malls. They look like a Subway or a Tropical Smoothie Cafe. So I looked a little harder and found an actual non-chain called, I kid you not, Bubba's Biscuits and BBQ.
And the few reviews I could find online were glowing. Plus, I love biscuits nearly as much as I love BBQ.
So we drove to Bubba's for dinner, only to find that they close at 2pm most weekdays. Dammit, dammit, dammit!
So we settled on Shane's. While the ambiance was certainly lacking, the food was actually quite good. The pulled pork was a little dry, but they had a good mustard-based BBQ sauce that moistened it up just fine.
I love mustard-based BBQ sauces. They're less sweet than tomato-based. But they're not as lip-puckering as vinegar-based. If you want to try one, email me and I'll send you a recipe from Cook's Country or Cook's Illustrated. (I don't remember which. Doesn't matter. Made by the same folks.) It's a snap to make. It's basically yellow mustard, white vinegar, brown sugar, and a few spices. You don't even need to cook it.
Shane's ribs were darn good. Very meaty, with a nice kicky sauce. Very tender, but not too tender.
My sides were beans, which were just fine, and a really nice cole slaw. The slaw was crunchy with just enough dressing to hold it together. Really fresh and bright, just how I likes it.
So, for a chain in a strip mall, this is pretty good stuff!
Tragically, I had to leave town and wasn't able to try Bubba's. I tried to console myself with some Popeye's biscuits at the airport.
Five Guys WTF?
Williamsburg recent obtained its own Five Guys hamburger joint. So, we tried it out.
Horrible! Why would anyone eat there? The hamburgers are greasy and are on soft white buns that make each bite wad up in your mouth like a soiled diaper. (Not that I've ever had a wad of soiled diaper in my mouth. Ewww!)
The fries are horrible, a fetid combination of burned exteriors and underdone interiors. They're all smashed into a cup to ensure that they get soggy from the trapped steam.
The only tasty thing in the building are the peanuts. Yes, they have big boxes of peanuts-in-the-shell. You can eat as many as you want. You'll want a lot because nothing else is edible.
Unfortunately, someone decided that the optimum location for this box of edibles was on top of the garbage can. Health code FAIL!
What To Grow?
As Spring approaches, we need to decide what, if anything, we're going to grow out on the back deck.
In years past, we've grown basil and beans. One summer, we made a raised bed in the backyard and grew cucumbers. That was great. Unfortunately, the following year, the deer discovered the plot.
Last year, we were bums and didn't grow a damn thing.
I'd like to plant a whole bunch of stuff. We recently switched the cat litter boxes to scoopable litter. The scoopable form comes in these really sturdy plastic buckets. However, since we have 5 cats, we buy at least a couple buckets every week. We're starting to get quite a collection. I think they would make great planters.
We had initially thought that we would purchase some picnic table benches and put planters on top of those. It would raise up the plants for easier tending. It would also get them up out of the shadow of the deck railing. And it would get them off the deck surface, preventing chronic damp underneath.
But now I'm thinking that I could stack two containers. I could drill drainage holes in the bottom of the top container. And I could leave the lid on the bottom container and drill holes in it. The top container would act as the planter. The bottom would catch excess water for reuse, as well as just keep it off the deck. And, it would raise up the planters without the need for a bench.
The only problem is in draining off the water in the bottom container. Maybe a small hole in the side? Haven't figured that out yet.
So, what should we grow? Basil is a given. I love basil. String beans are nice. We screwed some hooks into the roof overhang, letting us run strings from planters to the roof. (Got the idea from a friend who grows hops for beer brewing on the front of his suburban palace.)
With the raised planters, bush beans would also work well.
Cukes are a problem because they'll want to spread out and the deck gets too hot for them to actually touch the wood. Plus, who knows what's in the wood stain.
We might try some radishes and carrots. But you really need square footage to grow anything more than just a handful of either of those.
I've been thinking of actually growing some real live tea. Certainly, you couldn't grow enough to yield a significant amount of tea. But it would be cool to drink at least one cup of real tea you grew yourself.
And then, of course, there's marijuana. With the recession, I expect pot sales to take off. Always good to have a cash crop handy. (Let's see how long it takes for my wife to chastise me.)
Smoothies!
If you ever have any sort of stomach problem and barf up your groceries, you'll be hesitant to eat again right away. Yet you'll need to eat something to get the nourishment you need.
For me, the perfect food turned out to be fruit smoothies. They hit the spot, gave me needed energy, and didn't bug my stomach one bit. Plus, they're dead easy to make. (Ignore fancy smoothie recipes.)
Here's what you do:
- Put a quart of vanilla yogurt into the blender. Put on the top, but leave out the round plastic thingie in the middle. Instead, fold up some paper towels.
- Hold the paper towels over the hole and whizz up the yogurt a bit to loosen it up.
- While the blender is running, lift the paper towels and drop pieces of frozen fruit down the hole, one at a time. Give 'em a good drop, so they sink down and hit the blades. Quickly replacing the paper towels after each piece will help prevent smoothie drops on the ceiling.
- Keep adding fruit until the smoothie reaches the thickness you like. You might have to stop it a couple times to push the fruit down once it gets fairly thick.
- Drink it up!
A quart of yogurt makes two big-ass smoothies. We like to use a mixture of frozen strawberries, frozen peaches, and frozen mango.
The Most Important Question Of Our Time
So, my wife and I were having a heated discussion last night as to the proper way to dress scrambled eggs. Neither was able to convince the other. So I thought I'd put the question up on the blog. After all, the civics test showed that the readership of this blog is far smarter than the average person, educator, or elected official.
So, here are the options:
- Sprinkle the scrambled eggs liberally with cinnamon and sugar.
- Slather grape jelly on two pieces of toast, then put the eggs on one piece and cover with the other, making a grape jelly and scrambled eggs toasted sandwich.
So, which would you pick?
(Bonus points to Rogoliver if he can figure out which method is Kari's.)
Stuffed!
Oh, I'm stuffed!
I love Turkey Day. I love it almost as much as the day after Turkey Day. (The day after has all the food of the day itself, with less preparation work.)
Unlike some people, we can actually cook, a little. However, my wife and I don't really like the same food.
We both like turkey. So that part was easy. We had to settle on a teeny 5 pound breast. We just don't need a full turkey. But, we couldn't find large breasts this year. (Somehow managed to resisting linking that.) Turns out the one we had was just right. Filled us up today, with enough left for tomorrow.
We made a brine for it last night. Got up early this morning to pop in the bird, then went back to bed.
It was really good. Moist and flavorful. Brine your bird!
My wife prefers her turkey with gravy, rice, homemade cranberry sauce, and a lurid concoction of Cool Whip, pineapple, pistachio pudding mix, and mini marshmallows. She often includes corn (not in the Cool Whip!), but felt pressed for time and skipped the corn today. It's on deck for tomorrow.
I favor gravy, stuffing, and green bean casserole. I'm making homemade stuffing from scratch tomorrow. Again, had too much to do today, plus only one oven. So today, I had Stovetop Stuffing. But, hey, I added raisins to it, as all valid stuffings have raisins.
The green bean casserole is basically Paula Deen's version of the classic. It's green beans (duh), onions, mushrooms, Cream of Mushroom soup, french-fried onion rings, and cheddar cheese. If you ignore the tragic amount of butter in it, it's fairly healthy. At least, I hope so. I ate an ass-load.
For dessert, we had scones. She made cinnamon-apple scones. The recipe is from Cook's Illustrated magazine. I made pumpkin scones, based on the same recipe, but with pumpkin additions. For the holidays, I also added chopped candied ginger to them. So very good! If you ignore the tragic amount of butter in them, they're fairly healthy.
Tomorrow, I might whip some cream in which to dip them!
To make it really feel like a holiday, we also watched the Turkey Day episode of WKRP in Cincinnati.
The dishwasher is on its third load, but that just means I'm all caught up. So now I'm just sitting around, pleasantly stuffed.
Sweet Porky Goodness
It's that time of the year in Virginia. 91 one day, 63 the next. Sliding into fall means a few important things.
It's cool enough to take my daily exercise via a walk outside. This is much more pleasant than sitting on the exercise bike. It's also much gentler on my butt. (I'm a chunky guy, but have absolutely no butt.)
It means we can sleep with the windows open. (Even though that tends to play havoc with my allergies.)
It means low utility bills, as we're using neither the A/C nor the heat.
But, more importantly, it means a shift in weekend cookery from grilling outside to baking and roasting inside! We've had some nice pizzas lately. (Turns out that the newly opened Trader Joe's sells more than decent pizza dough. Just 99 cents!) I had a great pot of chili a few weeks ago. (And just ate the last of it out of the freezer.) And today, we made a pork roast. It's rubbed with a nice combo of black pepper, rosemary, salt, and brown sugar. It makes a really nice crust on the meat.
Redemption
No, not regarding sports. Nor politics. I'm talkin' food, here.
Sunday night, we made pizza, on a made-from-scratch crust. We had high expectations. I don't know if it was the humidity or what, but the crust just didn't turn out well. It wasn't bad. But it was too dense and thick. (Dense and thin is okay. Thick and light is okay. Just not thick and dense.) And we had had such high expectations for it that we were truly crushed.
So, it was with a bit of trepidation that I fixed up a batch of chili last night. My chili is, of course, my own recipe. It involves hot italian sausage, lots of onions, diced tomatoes, stewed tomatoes, tomato sauce, black beans, red (not kidney) beans, and a secret thickening agent. (Pssst, it's red lentils.) And, of course, chili spices.
Well, I needn't have worried. It was one of the best batches of chili I've ever had!
I like to add chunks of sharp cheddar to mine when I eat it. I also like to take Frito scoops and use them as spoons, first scooping up some sour cream, then some chili.
