I Must Learn to Have an Original Thought Once in a While

I have started on the book of Numbers. And I have to say, the title is appropriate. There are some parts of the Bible I just skim. I know I will never remember the names of the tribe leaders and how many people were in each tribe. I admire anyone who can memorize things like that.

I feel the need for a break, so I am perusing my weekly Winn-Dixie ad. As you may recall, Winn-Dixie is the Florida supermarket chain which is NOT funding a lawsuit to make it impossible for people to carry arms in their cars. As far as I know. Wish I could say the same of Publix. I haven't shopped there in quite some time.

I was busy with nonsense on Thursday and Friday, so I neglected to check this week's ad. And it breaks my heart, because skirt steak has been on sale. Oh, the ache.

They're also selling boliche (eye round roast) for $2.99 a pound. This stuff is wonderful, if you do what the Cubans do with it. Open a channel down the middle and stuff it with fat and/or sausage. Brown it and put it in a pressure cooker with various stew ingredients. Give it an hour and a half. It will be excellent. I think you could make it better by adding a beef rib (nearly free) to bulk up the sauce.

Boneless pork roast, $1.99 a pound. Be still, my heart. The things I can do with that.

Rib roast, $5.99 a pound! Oh, yes. Get me some of that. The freezer is already full of aged rib eyes, but I can make room for more.

Lots of good stuff today. I better go grab something that cooks up fast and easy, so as to minimize the impact on my Sunday.

I ate a Cherokee Chocolate tomato and a Dr. Wyche's yellow tomato today. I managed to grow them, although they were small and not pretty. The flavor was magnificent. Much better than the heirlooms you get at stores. People keep telling me hybrids are the way to go. Whatever. I may never know, because I can't grow hybrids, either.

I have a new batch of tomato plants going. We'll see how they do. The Dr. Wyche's tomatoes are considerably better than the Kentucky Beefsteaks I grew, so in the future, I guess I'll just try to grow Dr. Wyche's. That offends my national pride as a person born in Kentucky, but I have to call them as I see them.

Mike tells me his plants grow beautifully INDOORS in NEW HAMPSHIRE with ONE HOUR OF SUNLIGHT PER DAY in TWO-GALLON BUCKETS. I am so mad. I gave him the seeds, so I know I could have done this. It's time for me to try. I should have known better than to trust the people who claimed plants had to have all-day sun. I'm going to put two plants indoors, even if I have to throw out furniture. In here, there will be no bugs and no fungus.

Mike and I are a lot alike. Neither of us does anything the orthodox way. I tried to follow the rules, and I got nothing for it. He did everything wrong and has tons of tomatoes. What was I thinking?

See you at the meat counter.

Posted by Steve H. at 3:22 PM | Permalink  

Nature's Tastiest Creature is Also Our Ally Against Islamofascism

Chris Muir just forwarded an irritating article from Front Page Magazine. Here's a link. It's called "Outlawing the Pig," and oddly enough, it was written by a Jewish lady (Janet Levy) who is upset by attacks on our pork-based culture.

Jews actually have a very reasonable attitude concerning pork. They can wear Hush Puppies. They can use soap made with pork. They can handle pork all day, if they want to. They just can't eat it. Muslims, on the other hand, seem to think my eating a ham sandwich on a public bus bench is a hate crime.

One fun tidbit from the article: the school system in Dearborn, Michigan no longer buys pork. They don't want precious Muslim tots to eat it by accident. Funny, no one ever did that for Jewish kids. Maybe that's because JEWS DON'T BLOW UP OFFICE BUILDINGS AND AIRPLANES AND SCHOOLS WHEN THEY DON'T GET THEIR WAY. Or, more correctly, because Jews would never dream of asking for this kind of pandering.

Here is yet one more example of Islam's need to grow up. You cannot force other people to adhere to the tenets of your backward, inherently violent, inherently intolerant religion.

The concessions mentioned in the article are obscene. It says the UK--not businesses there, but the government--banned the practice of giving piggy banks to bank customers as promotional items. It says the American retailer Target allows Somali cashiers to refuse to ring up pork items. You know what? If our countries are too pork-contaminated for you, there is a solution. MOVE. If your job requires you to be near pork, QUIT. You don't see born-again Christians taking jobs at nudie bars and then suing to make the dancers put on clothes. You don't see Jews taking jobs that require them to work on Saturdays and then suing for relief. If Islam is so wonderful, and you can't do it here because we won't submit in our homes and offices, move to a country where its laws are imposed on all citizens and GET OFF OUR BACKS.

I have a recommendation for everyone who is annoyed by this insidious campaign of coercion. Buy yourself some good-quality lard, and put it in the wax the next time you shine your floors or cabinets. Put a little in your hand lotion. Add it to your shampoo. Use soap made with pig fat. Use lard to treat the leather in your car, including the steering wheel. Add it to your car wax. Emulsify it with dishwashing liquid, put it in a sprayer, and soak your yard with it. Buy a couple of pigs for pets. Polish your guns and ammunition with a rag containing a little lard. They use lanolin (sheep fat) for casing lube. Why not lard? When you're done porking up your environment, tell everyone you know. Let's make pork impossible to avoid, at least in our homes and vehicles. Become a pork commando. And never, EVER fly without a small canned ham in your carry-on bag.

You say our kids can't have pork at school? Fine. We'll surround you with pork. We'll fix our houses and apartments so you can't use them after we leave. We'll fix it so any Muslims who enter our property are severely tainted.

It isn't "Islamofascists" making these idiotic demands. It's not Al Qaeda. It's so-called "moderate mainstream Muslims." Where is the moderation in forcing the general population to obey your religion's kooky rules?

Look, tomorrow I could start a bogus religion, claiming all vegetables are unclean. If I managed to put together a hundred thousand followers in my city, would that justify taking vegetables off the school lunch menu? Of course not.

Pork is a magnificent thing. I was thinking about it the other day. It's extremely versatile. It's delicious. It does things for food which no other mainstream meat can do. It's cheap. And pigs are easier to raise than cattle, and they require much less grain. On top of all that, it's a powerful weapon against Islamofascism. Why on earth would we allow it to be taken away from us? Short answer: we won't. We might as well start resisting now, because eventually, we will have to rise up and put a stop to this nonsense.

I should get me a plot of land and raise a few pigs and write a book about it. How to raise your own pigs, slaughter them, and prepare them, on the cheap.

Lately I've been having a blast, buying cheap pork from Winn-Dixie and doing magic with it. The glorious delights I've prepared! Fresh green beans pressure-cooked with bacon or ham hocks. Bacon-grease cornbread, with beef stew poured over it. One thing after another; things you just can't do with beef, lamb, or poultry. And baked goods without pork fat? No way. There is no substitute.

If food prices continue to rise due to the ethanol scam, you're going to see Americans raising meat in their yards. And there are only two options for most people. Pigs and poultry. Pigs may be very important soon, if we get into a serious recession or depression. Not just pigs, but old-fashioned, non-bioengineered pigs that produce lots of lovely, nutritious fat. As much as it would hurt to see our economy tank, I would love to see pigs in pens behind suburban homes. Driving the extremists out of their minds.

Posted by Steve H. at 12:08 PM | Permalink  

Chametz Banished

I had to practice a little law today. What a drag. But now it's over, and I get to go back to farting around.

Against what passes for my better judgment, I decided to try to grow off-season tomatoes again. Hey, no! Don't leave! I can do it! I'm positive! I just have to shoot them with copper and daconil twice a week.

I've figured something out. Miami tomatoes don't like containers. At least, they don't like my containers. I think keeping the moisture level right is just too hard. The tomatoes I grew in the ground last year looked better. Maybe I need to buy that super moisture-control dirt they sell, or maybe I need mulch. But I've decided to put tomatoes in the ground one more time and see what happens. In the past, they were the only plants that did any good.

I went to Winn-Dixie today, with a loaded pistol in my pocket, to buy pork and score more bottles of kosher-for-Passover Coke. WD is kind of ghetto, but now that Publix is attacking our civil rights with a draconian lawsuit, I no longer feel welcome to stroll their aisles as an armed citizen in search of tasty saturated fat.

I grabbed 8 bottles of Coke, bringing my stash to over 20. And to keep me from keeling over on the way home, I bought two protein bars and a Coke Zero. I kept looking at it in the little cooler case, thinking, "It CAN'T be as bad as I remember." Oh, yes it can. How can people stand this crap? It tastes like window cleaner.

I was accosted on the way in and out by pushy volunteers collecting for something called DARE. I think they teach gang kids to play tetherball or something. Whatever. I almost never give money to charities that accost me on the street. Any moron can empty a chicken bucket and walk around in traffic trying to get people to put money in it. "Oh, uh, it's for the Dalai Lama's bladder surgery. No, really. And bunnies with cancer. Look, just give me a dollar before the liquor store closes."

Here is my tip for the DARE volunteers. Annoy people going into the store or people going out. But not BOTH. Because they are the SAME PEOPLE. If I didn't give you money before going in and finding out how much the ethanol scam has jacked up the price of my food, chances are, I won't give you money after I pay an indirect ransom to Al Gore and the rest of the corn crooks.

I bought a bag of jasmine rice on a whim. Certain types of rice were flat-out missing, and I wanted some jasmine or basmati rice, and all they had was a four-pound bag. I have no idea what I'll do with four pounds, but I can't help it. I panicked. I was going to do something with lamb, but I'm not sure what.

It cost $4.69. When you imagine it prepared with water and swollen to its fully cooked size, you realize it's still not a bad deal.

I should try to make some .45 rounds for tomorrow. I may be dragging my buddy Pat and his brother Mario to the range. They can drive me to the hospital if I weigh the powder wrong.

Hope your day is shaping up as well as the remainder of mine.

Posted by Steve H. at 5:50 PM | Permalink  

Love for Sale

It's Meat Day! It's Meat Day! My weekly Winn-Dixie ad just came!

Let's see.

Lots of buy-one-get-one-free boneless chicken. And chuck steak. I don't even know what that is.

Boneless top sirloin? Isn't that palomilla steak? I sure hope so.

Shoulder blade or arm lamb chops! Man, those are good. I substituted them in a recipe for shanks, and they were better.

Hey, here is something I threw together recently, because brisket was on sale. It was really good, and it took literally ten minutes to fix.

INGREDIENTS

2-3 lb. brisket
1 pint dry red wine
1 pint beef broth
1 mashed clove garlic
1/2 tsp. salt
pepper to taste
2 bay leaves
5 red potatoes cut in chunks no bigger than 1.5" cubes
1 big white onion, sliced
1 pint baby carrots
6 tbsp. olive oil or beef fat

The quantities are approximate.

Get a big stock pot and heat it up to browning temperature. Add oil or fat. Salt and pepper the brisket heavily and brown both sides. Pour in the liquid ingredients. Add the seasonings. Cram the other stuff in, doing your best to get it under the level of the liquid. Simmer for 4 hours or until it can be taken apart with a fork.

I used a stock pot only slightly wider than the brisket, so the liquid would be high enough to cover things. It might be better if you reduce the ratio of beef to everything else. It would be great with cornbread.

You could flour the beef before browning, or you might starch up the liquid at the end to thicken it. Consider leeks instead of onions.

This is very much like what I did with lamb a week ago. I think I might try the lamb again with white wine, sherry, or Marsala.

I can see why people make stews. You work for a few minutes, you dirty one pot and a cutting board, and you're done. I should come up with a chicken stew.

Pork tenderloin is on sale. I dunno. I wasn't thrilled when I cooked it. I think regular pork roast is way better. TC swears I did it wrong. Oh, God. I apparently forgot to blogroll TC.

Now that Publix has alienated me by trying to disarm its employees, I guess I better shop at WD more often. They have kosher Coke right now, anyway, and Publix is out, so I think a visit is mandatory.

Posted by Steve H. at 2:34 PM | Permalink  

Wreath of Flubber

I can't seem to quit cooking with Marsala. Yesterday I tried a new idea for pork tenderloin. Last week I fried medallions in Marsala, but I thought they were a little dry. This time I decided to bake a whole pork loin in Marsala. I made up the recipe on the fly, which is not hard to do when you bake pork in wine. It will always be good. You might try it and fiddle with it and see what you think.

INGREDIENTS

1 pork loin
1 cup Marsala (Florio's Sweet)
1 large white onion
3/4 cup sliced carrots
1 clove garlic, pressed
20 grape tomatoes
5 cayenne peppers, seeded and chopped
2 tbsp. butter
1 tsp. salt
pepper to taste

I dissolved the salt in about 1/2 cup of Marsala and put it in a plastic bag with the tenderloin, with the air squeezed out. An hour or two later, I arranged the tenderloin in a wreath shape (it separated into two long halves) around the bottom of a 2 1/2-quart Pyrex dish. I sliced and quartered the onion and lowered it into the round hole between the pork loin halves without breaking it up. I tossed in the peppers and the butter and everything else. I peppered the top of the loin. I baked at 300 for two hours and then increased the heat to 350 for one hour, to brown it.

It was very nice. Maybe I should have added beef broth. Sun-dried tomatoes might be better than fresh. I meant to add sauteed almonds at the end, but I forgot.

Truthfully, it was still dry, even though it baked while soaking in wine and butter. Is that just inevitable with pork loin? If so, I'd go with a boneless pork roast. They're fantastic.

Today I'm fixing lamb arm chops (Winn-Dixie cheapies) using my recipe for lamb shanks with orzo. I'm leaving out the orzo. They'll still be good. I don't know why arm chops are so cheap. They're great.

Posted by Steve H. at 3:07 PM | Permalink  

No Timer, no Warm-Up

Six days ago, I bought a boneless rib eye roast at Costco. Choice. They were selling for $5.59 per pound again.

The meat is nice. Not the greatest. Frankly, I think the choice meat at my local grocery is somewhat better. But it's hard to go wrong for Costco's prices.

I've been aging the meat since I bought it, faithfully changing the cloth every day. That's extremely important, because when the meat gets wet, off flavors and smells develop. In the past, I put up with this, but now I think it was a mistake. Let it rot a little, but not too much, and keep it dry.

I ate a steak the day I bought the meat. It really wasn't good, by my standards. It was worth the cost, but it was fairly tough and didn't have a great flavor. Yesterday I ate another steak. Man, was it different. Much more tender. Juicy. Loaded with flavor. I was amazed. Same piece of beef, five days later. It was like 10% worse than prime. You really have to try this, keeping in mind that I know nothing about food safety and that you may experience a hideous, prolonged death from food poisoning. This steak is good enough for company. Not IMPORTANT company, but company.

I've changed the way I cook steaks. I couldn't get it into the book; it was too late. But I've made it simpler, and I want you to know about it.

First of all, the flat cast iron griddle is king. The black crud that accumulates on the surface adds a flavor that is truly magnificent. Like skillet seasoning, only more intense. You have to scrape it down with a spatula on occasion, and after you cook steaks, you're smart to pour the excess grease off immediately, but you don't want to clean the griddle, ever. Sometimes I heat it up and run water over it to reduce the amount of crud, but I never remove it completely.

Second, you don't need a timer if you have a digital thermometer. Stick the probe halfway between the sides of the steak. Note the temperature. You should already know what you want the final temperature to be, from past experience. I like 115-120 degrees. Subtract the final temperature from the initial temperature, divide by two, and add to the initial temperature. This is the temperature at which the meat will be halfway done. At this temperature, turn the steak. You don't have to wait for the steak to warm to room temperature before you cook it, if you do it this way.

I'll give an example. Initial temperature, 50 degrees. Final temperature, 120. Subtract, and you get 70. Divide by two, and you get 35. Add to the initial temperature, and you get 85. When the probe hits 85 degrees, the steak is about halfway done, so turn it.

Easy!

Another thing: raise the edge of the steak once in a while to see how it looks. Depending on the thickness, you may have to cook the outside faster or slower. If you're cooking a thin steak, you don't have much time, so you'll want higher heat in order to get the outside brown and crisp. If you ever see black spots developing, flip the steak immediately and lower the heat. And don't get nervous. If you check the steak at least every two minutes, you'll be fine. My 2-inch rib eyes take 18 minutes, total. If you're cooking more than one steak, you don't necessarily need to put probes in all of them. If the steaks are identical, the internal temperatures will be about the same at any given time.

I tend to start off with the heat fairly high and then turn it down once the outside is brown. But sometimes I find that the outside is still grey close to the end, and I crank the heat up to fix it.

I never put anything but salt on my steaks. I hold them over the sink in one hand and rotate them while I salt the hell out of them with a shaker in the other hand. The amount that sticks is always right. Once the steak is cooked, I'll pour garlic butter on it, but I don't fool with pepper or Montreal seasoning. The flavor of aged meat cooked on a griddle is so good, it would be a sin.

If you like a lot of sauce and crap on your steak, and you're using good aged meat, it means you don't like the taste of steak. There is nothing wrong with that, but you might as well be aware that you're not getting what other people get out of the experience. It's like smoking a flavored cigar.

I hope this change to the method makes your lives easier. There is really no excuse not to have excellent steak-and-potato dinners on tap, all the time. Easy, tasty, and very little cleanup.

Posted by Steve H. at 1:15 PM | Permalink  

Your Opinion, Please

Mike and I had a very weird day. We intended to go to the range, but Mike was late, and he came up with a plan: visit a bunch of top-rated Miami pizzerias and see how their pizza compared to the recipes he and I came up with. I got back a couple of hours ago. We hit EIGHT pizzerias. Mike actually took notes. I'll blog the whole thing and add photos eventually.

Three places had pizza I would consider good enough to pay for. Steve's (North Miami Beach), Casola's (Coconut Grove), and...oops, two places. We intended to try Frankie's, but a problem came up, so we skipped it. I've been there in the past, however, and while it was perfectly good, it wasn't worth leaving home for. Not when you have your own good recipe.

Steve's used to be pretty weak. Mike and I ate there a few times when we were kids. But it got a lot better at some point in the past.

I avoided The Big Cheese and Miami's Best Pizza. The Big Cheese makes a good, solid pizza, but it's not fantastic. Miami's Best is the most overrated pizzeria (first, by the guy who named it) in the galaxy. The sauce is excellent, but the crust is just good. The cheese is downright odd. It has Muenster in it, I think. Not bad, but not right. And they do a really sloppy job, because the kitchen is always full of college kids playing grabass. They messed up my last five pies. On top of that, I've had some odd treatment in there. For one thing, they refuse to take credit cards, which is just plain obnoxious. For another, there is a weird little dude there who refuses to put change in your hand. He'll look you in the eye and slap it on the counter, like he's trying to teach you a lesson. I am teaching him a lesson, in return. By eating elsewhere.

Fun day. That's the condensed version. Nothing normal ever happens around Mike.

Right now I'm reading a book online. Remember the other day, when I mentioned Corrie ten Boom, the lady who hid Jews from the Nazis and ended up in a concentration camp? Her book, The Hiding Place, meant a lot to me when I was younger, and I ordered myself a new copy.

Some people responded very positively to that, so I'll talk about a couple of related items. First, you can read the Bible online. Easily, painlessly, and with a great search function. Here's a link.

Second, I found another familiar old book on the web. I wondered if any of my readers had any thoughts about it. My mother had a beat-up old copy I used to borrow. It's called Angels on Assignment, and it was written by the late Roland Buck.

Ordinarily I'm extremely skeptical of anyone who says he has had a supernatural experience. Especially if it made money for him. And as my attitude toward Mormonism shows, I have no patience with charlatans who make up "helpful" addenda to the Bible. But Buck's book seems different from run-of-the-mill books in this genre.

He was a pastor, and he claimed he was visited by angels. And they told him encouraging things about God and the future. They helped him minister to a number of people in special need. They even clarified a few things about theology.

I have looked around the web, and it seems like a lot of Christians think this book is just dandy. I guess that, like me, they were hard-pressed to see anything heretical in it. Unlike Mormonism, which denies the one truth which is the whole point of Christianity, Buck's book seems consistent with the Bible, although he does appear to verge into prosperity-preaching. What I want to know is, have any of you read the book, and what do you think of it?

You can read the whole thing online, at this link. Free.

There are a lot of other characters out there with books about supernatural experiences, and I am not nearly as willing to accept them. For example, there are more than a few people who make a fine living claiming they went to hell or heaven or both...and came back. I would be more inclined to believe them if they profited less and their stories were consistent. Hell can't be hot AND cold, can it? Dark AND full of bright flames? Come on. And I'm automatically suspicious of anyone who claims torment in hell lasts forever. The Jews don't believe that, and I think they're right. What is the point in burning someone for a trillion, trillion, trillion years, raised to the trillion-trillionth power? I think people who accept that idea unquestioningly probably aren't good at math. "Infinity" is REALLY big. You may think you'd torture someone like Hitler for eternity. But you wouldn't. My guess has always been that when the Bible uses terms like "everlasting" to describe hell, it refers to its existence, not the time an individual spends there.

There used to be a guy who appeared on TBN a lot, talking about his visits to heaven and hell. His last name was Eby. He was very entertaining. But he "prophesied" that he would remain alive until Jesus returned. And as of this writing, he has been dead for years. He was either crazy or, far more likely, a complete fraud. Would God take a prophet to heaven and hell, and send him back, and expect us to believe what he said, and then let him get caught saying something utterly wrong? No.

I know I seem gullible even considering the possibility that Roland Buck told the truth. But I know for a fact that angels exist, so I have to accept the possibility that people have had prolonged encounters with them, apart from the encounters mentioned in the Bible.

There are some unflattering things on the web about Charles and Frances Hunter, the faith-healing evangelists who brought Buck's book to light. Maybe they're tremendous liars. Maybe Buck was a crook. That's the most likely explanation, after all. But it's such a nice book! A person can't help wishing it were true.

Posted by Steve H. at 10:28 PM | Permalink  

Orange Whip?

Mike is in town today. We were planning on an orgy of 1911 shooting, but he's running late. In typical Mike fashion, he has proposed something truly weird. He says we have completely conquered pizza, which is true. There is no longer any point in either of us going out, when we want really good pizza. He says we should therefore tour a few Dade County places that get good marks, purely so we can scoff at them. So I'm putting together a list of places that are highly thought of. I'm eliminating the frou-frou places out of hand. Wood-fired oven? Goat cheese? Screw off. You don't count. Real pizza means stainless steel ovens and cheese from a cow. That other stuff is date food.

So far I've listed 8 places. I think if we try any more joints than that, there will be an ER visit.

Mike wants to take photos and the whole nine yards.

God help us.

More

An inadvertent benediction, from reader Aelfheld:

"FYI, today is National Pig Day. I figure it's either an acknowledgment of the noble porker - that font of bacon, sausage, and lard - or a tribute to Rosie O'Donnell."

More

Wonderful gun-related quote to start your weekend: CLICK.

Posted by Steve H. at 10:14 AM | Permalink  

Another Book in the Can

I got a major problem off my back today. I finished proofreading the galleys for the cookbook. I was supposed to have them in New York by Monday, but when I got them ready to go, I realized I wasn't completely sure which address to send them to.

Damn it. Now I have to ship them on the day they're supposed to be on my editor's desk. Like he doesn't drink enough Maalox as it is.

I will make an effort to resume blogging. But the sensation of stress melting away is making it difficult.

I'm so proud of this book. My first book did okay. I don't think the second one really did anything. This one, I have great expectations for. If I can just avoid having it pigeonholed.

I think I've finally done something really worthwhile. Sometimes I think about practicing law, and how crazy it was to let it go. But when I read some of the chapters in the book, I'm so pleased with the quality, I feel like I had no choice. And aside from the writing, I actually came up with some good recipes. If there's another good, reliable, easy street pizza recipe out there, I am unaware of it. I should get a Nobel Prize for that.

Still too fried to write. But I will return.

Mmm..."fried."

Posted by Steve H. at 6:29 PM | Permalink  

Good Stuff

I fried up a piece of flap meat, just like I did the skirt steak I had the other day.

Here is the report. It tastes just as good. I'd say it's slightly tougher, but well worth $4.79/lb.

I think most people who cook this stuff slice it the wrong way. The natural instinct is to slice it with the grain, so you get a long piece of meat with the grain running across it. But that's stupid. You want a long skinny piece with the grain running parallel to the length. Because when you cut it in bites, you'll naturally cut across the grain, and it will be easier to chew.

Posted by Steve H. at 9:11 PM | Permalink  

Flaptastic

I still can't figure out whether skirt steak and flap meat are the same thing. I Googled for a while. Some guy who claims to cut up carcasses for a living says they're the same. Other people claim skirt steak is the steer's diaphragm and flap meat is something that hangs off the loin. People with what seem like perfectly good credentials completely contradict each other.

Some people claim flap meat is better. I hope that's true, because I just scored five pounds of it at Costco, for $4.79/lb. And I plan to chow down on it later. I'll deliver my results. The skirt steak I ate day before yesterday was absolutely outstanding. Nearly as good as prime steak. The texture was not in the same league, but when you brown it and serve it with garlic butter, the flavor makes up for the texture. I've had entrana (the Argentinian grilled version) many times, and while it was always good, my fried skirt steak blows it away. No contest.

The flap meat I bought today is much wider. I plan to cut it in strips, because fried food is always better when it's not too big. You want a lot of surface area for browning. I think 3-4" wide is just about perfect for this meat.

Hmm...according to Gourmetsleuth.com, flap meat is part of the loin, but skirt and flank steak come from the underside of the steer.

Other major scores: enough Q-Tips to last the rest of my life. These are important when you shoot a lot. Also, a big flat of Mexican blackberries, for five bucks. I could not resist. In Kentucky, blackberries are stubborn weeds, so they're always in good supply. I used to pick them when I was a kid, and my grandmother made cobbler and jelly out of them. My aunt Jean kept blackberry wine in her fridge, in a Double Cola bottle. I think it was the only liquor she allowed in her house. It's my understanding that old people drank it as a laxative. I missed blackberries, and I couldn't resist these. They're huge and sweet and perfect-looking, although I think the wild ones tasted better.

I wonder if I'll regret eating so many of them.

I have to start buying pork at Costco. For $1.79/lb. you can get a whole loin and slice it into chops.

I looked for Kirkland beer. I was determined to try it. But I guess it's not on the market yet.

For the first time, I checked liquor prices. Let's see. Pinch was $22.99 for 750 ml. Let me see what it sells for elsewhere. Holy crap! Over thirty bucks! Damn, now I know where to get blended Scotch. They also have Macallan 12, but I would have to try it before I'd spend money on it. I've had the 7, which has great flavor but is not smooth enough, and I've had the 15, which is perfect. And I had the 18, which seemed like a complete waste of money. If it costs more, it ought to taste significantly better. Maybe there is a limit to how much you can improve Scotch by aging it. Everyone drinks Johnny Walker Green and Blue now; I never bothered to try them. I'm perfectly satisfied with Black.

Liquor prices look pretty good. Excellent.

On top of all this, I found a back-door route to Costco, so now it isn't torture to drive there.

That was my big shopping day. Now I have enough meat to get me through Wednesday.

Posted by Steve H. at 5:43 PM | Permalink  

At Least I Didn't Have to Hire a Slackjaw

I resolved a major quandary today.

As longtime readers and Nowlive listeners know, I am a big fan of Winn-Dixie supermarkets because they stock a nice variety of white trash/ghetto pork treats. And they have "reward cards" that allow you to get huge breaks on weekly specials.

I want that cheap pork. Oh, how I want it. But I don't want Big Brother tracking my purchases through a computerized card. What to do?

I found out that Winn-Dixie will give you a card if you apply online. With no ID check. So I applied using my favorite Internet alias: Mr. Red Butz. And I gave them the phone number for the Miami time of day recording.

Soon I'll be ass-deep in delicious, inexpensive pork. And I won't have to worry about Skynet keeping a list of my purchases. Instead they'll be keeping tabs on Mr. Butz. They'll get the marketing info they want. It just won't be traceable to me.

This thing is worth it. I'm looking at this week's ad. Boston Butt, $1.49/lb. Spare ribs, $1.79/lb. Usually they have better bargains than this, but these aren't bad. Hey, if you buy country-style ribs or steak, you get another item of equal or lesser value free. Not too shabby.

What else is going on? Let's see. I decided to record a PSA for my Nowlive show. What the hell. Thousands of people hear it every day, so it can't hurt. I'm going to mention four charities that are honest and effective. I like World Vision, World Relief, Care Net, and the International Federation of Christians and Jews. Can't hurt to do something useful while I'm blabbering about midgets and pork.

I'm keeping up with my tools, believe it or not. My father needed a hard-to-describe thing to keep his closet doors on track, so I replicated the old one using the table saw, the miter saw, the router, and my Wecheer rotary tool.

I had to start by making myself a 3/8"-thick red oak board. The board I had was more like 5/8". I stood it up on its side on the table saw, put a two-by-eight beside it as a guide, and pushed it through with a makeshift push stick. I was on the verge of incontinence the whole time. I knew I was jury-rigging it, but I didn't have a week to wait for featherboards and so on. It worked perfectly. Table saws rock.

I then cut the board to length with the miter saw, routed out two grooves (which, I learned later, were totally unnecessary), and used the Wecheer to carve out holes for three plastic guide thingamajigs. Tools are great. It was a miserable job (due to my lack of a drill press, which is what I needed to make the holes), but it was ten times less miserable than using the tools I had five years ago.

Jesus. I may as well buy a damn drill press. On the other hand, maybe I could get by with one of those jigs that attach to hand drills. Or a drill press rig for my Proxxon. That might actually be more useful, since most of the things I want to work on are very small. On the other hand, it would be pretty weak, and maybe a real drill press could do everything it could do, and would be a better deal in the end.

Arrgh.

The miter saw is wonderful. I half-wish I had blown the extra money and bought a 12" sliding job. It would be huge and heavy, but much more versatile. Right now, there are things I have to use the table saw for, which would be easy to do with a sliding miter saw.

I'm going to order some featherboardy things. I can't keep putting it off. If I had cut something big yesterday, it might have flown off and caused problems. I had to "aim" the saw away from my motorcycles so flying objects would hit the garage door instead. That saw is scary as hell, and I want it to be as safe and predictable as possible.

Some people believe in buying tools as the need arises. I don't. You can do that for some tools, but there are some basic items you just goddamn well ought to have in your garage at all times. Just bite the frigging bullet and get them. You need a table saw. You need a good bench. You need a vise. Some kind of compressor. Everybody, without exception, needs a cordless impact driver. Why fart around? If you can afford it, put together a basic shop.

Buying a tool is liking buying a coffin. If you buy it before you need it, you can shop around and basically rape the vendors. If you wait until you have no choice, you buy whatever is available, and you pay too much. Simple truth. Yes, your money earns interest if you wait. But how often is the amount you earn likely to be worth it? Buy a drill press this year for $300, on sale, or earn interest and buy it two years later for $450. Did you really accomplish anything? That's a very typical scenario.

I spent like 90 minutes with the Wecheer yesterday, and I did an okay job, and by the end, I couldn't feel anything in my right hand. With a drill press, I would have done a perfect job in fifteen minutes.

I just dread buying another damn tool.

My table saw (Ridgid TS2400) has an aluminum top, so I can't use magnetic featherboards. If anyone wants to throw out suggestions, be my guest.

More

I decided to try the GRR-Ripper featherboard/push combination for the table saw. It's not magnetic, and people seem to like it.

Posted by Steve H. at 1:30 PM | Permalink  

Dr. Atkins is Smiling Down From Heaven

I talked about this on Nowlive today, and I'm putting it here, too.

Want a fast, cheap beef-intensive lunch? Do what I do. Eat flap meat.

There is a lot of argument as to whether flap meat and skirt steak are the same thing. People claiming to be experts directly contradict eat other. What I'm talking about are long strips of meat from the steer's loin. The stuff Argentine steakhouses call "entrana." The package I bought yesterday was labeled "skirt steak."

Anyway, cut your steak in pieces short enough to allow you to get all of it in a skillet. Salt the meat on both sides and let it warm up. Put a skillet on high heat with a few tablespoons of olive oil in it. Toss in the meat and fry on both sides until nicely brown. Argentinians put chimichurri sauce on their meat, but that's a lot of work, and canned chimichurri isn't very good. So use garlic butter instead. Put half a stick of butter in a Pyrex cup, add a clove of pressed garlic, and nuke until the garlic is cooked. Add salt.

This stuff is magnificent. I eat it with canned greens, which are really convenient and go well with flap meat. It's easier to chew when you cut it so the meat fibers in each bite are short. In other words, cut across the grain.

It's also great the next day. The garlic soaks in and improves it. You can reheat it carefully in a microwave.

I'm thinking of creating a weird type of browned mashed potatoes to go with it.

Posted by Steve H. at 1:30 PM | Permalink  

Listen, for the Children

I'm getting ready for my noon Nowlive show.

Topics include:

* Yogurt sucks
* Coconut ice cream recipe
* How to make ice cream, generally
* Flap meat
* The perils of foods that promote regularity

I'll also discuss random food-related news stories. See you at noon.

Posted by Steve H. at 11:12 AM | Permalink  

In Your Face, Food Nazis

The proofs for the cookbook arrived yesterday, and generally, they look great. The publisher chose to follow a couple of weird typesetting conventions, but they're not a big deal.

My only concern is the pizza recipe. I want to replace it, but they'll charge me money to do that. As far as I'm concerned, that's about like returning to publish-on-demand. I'm not shelling out $4500 in order to get some low-level tech to spend three minutes cutting and pasting in Adobe.

I suspect that the publisher outsources this stuff, because they don't seem to understand how easy it is to change a manuscript. It's just a PDF file. You can switch out a chapter as quickly as sending an email. Publishers are generally pretty backward when it comes to technology. It's surprising. If they sent me the PDF, I could do it myself and have it back to them in a few minutes. Maybe an outside contractor is robbing them, pretending it's a big deal, just to get more money.

You want proof that publishers aren't up to speed on technology? My book's proofs arrived in the form of a printed-out PDF file. They paid Fedex to bring it to me. They could have emailed it to me, free of charge, and I could have printed it out here.

Working with publishers is like having sex through a keyhole. Everything is done by email, and you never know how long it will take to get a response. It's a very crude process. There is a lot of confusion, and emails disappear, and in the end, you have to be satisfied with an extremely limited amount of control.

The net result of all this is that books end up with problems that should have been easy to fix. This is not the end of the world, but it's still annoying.

I'm wondering if I should eventually go back to self-publishing. It's a huge step down in prestige, and there are marketing problems associated with it. Bookstores and people in the press don't take you seriously. On the other hand, with a POD, you can get the book exactly the way you want it. And making changes is slow, but easier than changing a book put out by a conventional publisher. I thought a conventional publisher would provide me with a big marketing machine to help me get noticed, but it turns out that isn't true. I have to do all that stuff myself. So the advantages are limited.

It's also surprisingly hard to get help with editing. Publishers give their editors so much work, they can't really do much to help authors with things like structure. My editor is great, but he can't sit around poring over my book for a week, making detailed suggestions about the way it's organized. He is as helpful as time constraints allow him to be, but in the end, the big changes are in my hands. They say Max Perkins virtually rewrote the books he worked on. Those days are over.

If bookstores and media people ever begin taking POD books seriously, publishers are going to have a big problem. It will be like Wal-Mart v. mom and pop. When Wal-Mart moves in, mom and pop can only survive by ratcheting up service and doing things Wal-Mart can't do. Right now, the conventional-publisher edge is that POD books have a bad reputation and are hard to push. That won't be true much longer. When that edge disappears, publishers are going to change. Or they may just vanish. Anyway, I'll be keeping an eye on changes in the industry.

I'm starting to wish I could do radio instead of writing. I'll always write, but there are problems associated with it. You never know how much you'll get paid. It's easy to get yourself sued. And your words have a permanence that words spoken on the air lack. It's harder for people to take what you've said in the past and use it against you. It's more work. And it seems like no one ever gets sued successfully. They just get fired and end up working somewhere else.

Speaking of radio or the next-best thing, I'll be doing my Nowlive show today. I never fixed my technical problem completely, but I have things running reasonably well. I've managed to regain the ability to edit sound files. People are telling me my problem was caused by a feud between Adobe and Microsoft. Whatever. My answer is to quit using Media Player. I never needed it anyway. There are a million other programs that do the same thing. If Microsoft wants people to use their stupid program, they can damn well publish a software update and fix it. I checked their website, and as is nearly always the case with Microsoft, they offered nothing beyond moron answers. "Reboot your computer and see if this fixes the problem." "Make sure your files are associated with Media Player." Okay, retards, thanks. I'll pass. I know this is Bill's way of trying to force people to pay for Indian tech support. Forget it.

The whole Microsoft business model seems to be based on publishing bad software with useless help files and no documentation whatsoever, and then charging people to tell them how to fix it. They still charge, don't they? I'd rather save the money and use it to buy a Mac. I hope Microsoft goes out of business and all its employees end up on bread lines. It might stimulate other assholes in the tech sector to try to be a little more responsible and compassionate. I doubt that will happen, however, given the controlling, smug, heartless nature of tech nerds. It's really sad that this warped segment of society has gained so much power over the rest of us. We used to give them wedgies and take their lunch money, and then they went on to become harmless underpaid math professors. Now they're turning into all-powerful Morlocks who run our lives. And they have no ethics and no empathy.

Viva Vista. That's all I can say. That product is turning out to be a red-hot brimstone enema for the Microsoft Corporation, and conclusive proof that they are very bad at what they do. I hope it helps their competitors bring us better stuff.

To get back to the book, I'm very excited this time. It was nice when the proofs for the other books arrived, but this time I nearly shook as I proofread. There are some chapters that I could never hope to improve on. Some chapters are weaker, but when people see the best chapters, the world will finally find out what I am capable of doing. Maybe it will sell. Maybe it won't. Either way, I'll get the satisfaction of putting some of my very best work in front of the public.

I'm sure the parasites at Publishers Weekly will pan it, because frankly, they are too stupid to understand my writing and too biased to tell the truth about it. I'm sure I'll get my share of unfair and dishonest reviews. But I got to say what I wanted to say. Finally. They can't do anything about that.

Tune in at noon.

Posted by Steve H. at 10:46 AM | Permalink  

I am More Deserving Than That Fat Bitch Gore

I guess I am gay, because I came home from watching the Super Bowl right as the fourth quarter began. I just don't give a crap about football. It rewards imbeciles for bad behavior, warps our priorities, generates welfare for greedy corporations that con cities into building football stadiums, and perverts education. On the other hand, the Super Bowl offends the crap out of the rest of the world, because it's four hours of American self-worship. So it's not all bad.

I wondered why they picked Tom Petty for the halftime act. Then I remembered. Tiny Tim and Lawrence Welk are dead.

Before I went over, I made another pizza. My God, if I die tonight, my life will not have been wasted, and I will have no regrets. I was whimpering and banging on the kitchen counter before it was over. It was the finest pizza yet generated by human hands. I could not believe I cooked it.

Today's big change? Less water. Before Mike got my thinking straight RE vinegar, I thought the sauce needed a lot of water. But I was wrong.

Turns out pizza sauce is nothing like pasta sauce. Don't think of it as sauce. Think in terms of salad dressing. That will get you closer to the mark. In fact, I have this wild idea. Pizza without sauce. Just Italian dressing and cheese.

It is completely possible that I now make the best pizza on planet earth. And I will share everything with you, unless the Domino's people have me killed first. This is a black, black day for the pizza industry.

And I'll bet you think I'm kidding.

You just wait.

People are mentioning the Bud Light commercial with cavemen in it, and how it ripped off my book. I guess it's possible, but that book was a risky longshot idea my publisher had, and since the caveman show that was supposed to generate free publicity tanked, the book never really went anywhere. So I doubt the Bud advertisting people know about it.

Here is some of the relevant text from the book.

A few years back, somebody figured out that you could make big rocks a lot more useful by modifying them. So he got an axe and a big rock, and he started hammering and chipping. And he made the rock round and flat, with a big hole in the middle. That was the first wheel.

After that, when people went to his house for dinner, they sat around the wheel, ate roast mastodon, and shoved the bones down the hole. It was brilliant.

Obviously, that’s not the only use for the wheel. Little ones make wonderful earrings and navel decorations.

A few years back, some guy made four wheels and ran sticks through the centers and put them at the corners of a big wooden platform. Then he put his family on the platform and pushed them through the village while the wheels turned.

I honestly think that was the dumbest invention I’ve ever seen. Well. Second-dumbest. After the tyrannosaurus caller.

Posted by Steve H. at 9:49 PM | Permalink  

Neatness Counts

Unbelievably, I have improved my pizza method AGAIN. First I stole all of Mike's ideas. Now I'm taking the mess out of the job.

You will recall that I finally got my dough-tossing technique under control. Now I've shifted completely to tossed dough. Here's the great thing about that. You don't need a hard surface, the way you would if you rolled the dough. And that means...you can do the whole thing over a dinner table covered with a beach towel. So you make your mess on the towel, wrap the towel up, and throw it in the washing machine. Geez, what a difference that makes.

I just ate nearly an entire pizza. My God, it was glorious. I plan to reduce the water in the sauce slightly, but it was still a better pizza than I can buy ANYWHERE.

Buy the book. You will not regret it.

Posted by Steve H. at 3:57 PM | Permalink  

Fit for a King or Even Pulitzer Prize Nominee Jonah Goldberg

You know what? I am the god of pizza. The GOD.

I just made another 14" pie, and unfortunately, I ate 10 of 12 slices before I remembered I wanted to take a picture. It was gorgeous. Anyway, it was one of the best pizza I've ever had, and I know the next one will be completely perfect.

Finally. I thought this day would never come. This is like perfecting the fusion reactor; it took years of work. What a relief. This is like the day when I realized that all cheesecakes but mine were basically vomit on a cracker. I'm serious. Try my damn book when it comes out. You will weep with shame, to think you doubted me.

I made one mistake. I tried balsamic vinegar instead of white. It added some flavor, but it was a little too much. Next time I think I'll do two parts white to one part balsamic.

Here is what I did. I cut back on the sauce, and I took the oil and sugar out of the crust. And I decided to use real garlic, because I was sick of using powdered in order to simulate street pizza flavor. That's it. That's all it took to put me in sight of the summit of pizza perfection.

Here, try this sauce.

INGREDIENTS

3 ounces Stanislaus Super Dolce sauce
2 tablespoons white vinegar
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1/2 teaspoon dry oregano
3 ounces water
1 tbsp. olive oil
1 teaspoon fresh garlic

Use a thin layer of that on a 14" pie. I used about 5 ounces, and that was almost heavy. Use my dough recipe, with high gluten flour, but leave the sugar out. Don't use oil in the dough, but oil the outside of it while it rises. You need at least 12 ounces (weight) of cheese.

Jesus, this was good. I now make the best pizza I can get locally. I know of no pizzeria in Miami that can touch this stuff. Hell, I don't recall a New York pizzeria that makes a better pie. And it was so easy. The kitchen isn't even dirty.

I think this is the happiest day of my life. And you should feel the same way.

The fresh garlic is wonderful. It's great to abandon the cheap-pizza ethic and get a little free with ingredients. I may try 00 flour next time, just for the hell of it. I still have a big bag.

Oh, man. I'm having an ego surge. Time to run around the block naked, screaming "I'm the man."

I hope no one has a BB gun handy this time.

Posted by Steve H. at 4:41 PM | Permalink  

This Entry Contains no Information Regarding Pulitzer Prize Nominee Jonah Goldberg

I'll tell you what. I have come to realize that performing is physically draining.

I've been on the Nowlive featured network for a few days running now, and at the end of a show, the adrenaline goes out of me, and I start to feel the way you feel about half an hour after a car wreck. Wiped out. There were all sorts of things I wanted to do today, but I can tell I'm going to be worthless until at least 3 p.m.

I have mixed feelings about this whole business. On the one hand, I have always dreaded fame. Even the tiny sliver of it you get from talking to a few thousand people. I wanted my work to be famous, but as for me, I wanted to be like J.D. Salinger. And I was mortified the day I realized I was going to have to put my face on video. Not as mortified as the people who had to look at it, but pretty mortified.

On the other hand, I have always wanted to do radio, without the cameras. Radio stars get to express themselves, and they aren't nearly as recognizable as other celebrities, unless they choose to be.

Sadly, you have to have a webcam if you want to get anywhere in Internet radio.

Things I helped the public understand today:

1. Fried food has magical healing powers, especially if you rub it on the afflicted area of your body.
2. Gun control results in people attacking and injuring each other with frozen candy bars.
3. If Al Gore rode a motorcycle, most of it would be concealed between his gigantic buttocks.
4. Cows have their own Bill of Rights, and it's mostly about their right to be eaten by me.

I can tell I'm going to make a pizza. There is just no way I can avoid it. I should throw that cheese in the street.

I have decided to do a Nowlive show on Sunday, even though it's during the Super Bowl. These people did me a big favor by featuring me, and I'm not going to leave them hanging. I think it would be best if I didn't use the pizza material until a better week, however. No point in wasting it on 50 people.

As soon as my strength returns, I will get the yeast going. You know what? All the work I've done--the blogging, the books, the radio appearances, Nowlive--it will all be worth it, even if all I really get out of it is the ability to make a monster pizza. I mean, pizza is that important.

I can tell you agree.

Posted by Steve H. at 2:03 PM | Permalink  

God Bless Nowlive

Because nobody wants to do Nowlive at 9 a.m. Pacific, I seem to own that time slot by default. At least for the time being. The second a popular host wants it, I'm out of there like Britney Spears's panties out the window of a moving Escalade.

I've been on the featured network twice in a row in that slot, and as far as I know, they'll keep putting me on until something better comes along. So I'm preaching the message of irresponsibility and obesity to a pretty large audience. I'll be doing it again today, so please tune in at this link. Today I plan to expand on my modest plan to put vegetarians in concentration camps.

You can also click the button in the widget to your right, to subscribe via Itunes.

I'll discuss pizza a little, too. I'm really floored by the results I got by stealing Mike's ideas. It's a wonderful thing, being able to make God's Own Pizza for about three bucks.

The main pizza discussion will be coming on Sunday. Believe it or not, it's extremely helpful to see someone toss dough, instead of hearing or reading about it. So I'll have a video of Mike doing his thing. It will change your life. No lie. You can do this.

Maybe that's what I should have called the book. "You Can do This." No, I guess not. But I get great satisfaction out of enabling guys like me to make their own first-rate man food.

More later. I have to prepare for the show.

Posted by Steve H. at 10:19 AM | Permalink  

Could Be

Mike is my pal. Mike is my oldest friend. Mike is someone I can always rely on.

So it's time to stab him in the back, Roger Simon style.

Last night I saw Mike make pizza for the very first time, and I finally nailed down the facts. IF YOU LISTENED TO MY NOWLIVE SHOW, YOU WOULD ALREADY KNOW ALL ABOUT THIS. Anyway, tonight I decided to implement some of his suggestions. The result? Spectacular. I'll try to upload a photo shortly.

My recipe will give you great results. There is nothing wrong with the dough or the cheese or the baking. But the sauce could be a little better. And I am pretty feeble (or was) when it comes to tossing crusts. I have that all fixed now.

Here's what you want to do. Get yourself a big ol' can of Stanislaus Super Dolce sauce. Make yourself a 14" crust, using my recipe. High gluten flour is probably the safest bet for tossing. You can use two tablespoons of oil in the dough, but you don't have to. But you should oil the outside to keep it from cracking while you work it.

Combine 3 ounces of canned sauce and 2 1/2 tablespoons of white vinegar. Add water until you have 6 ounces of sauce, total. Stir it up. You can add garlic and pepper if you want. Up to you.

Here is how you toss the dough. And remember, "toss" is just an expression. You don't really have to throw it.

1. Form the dough into a disk roughly four times as wide as it is thick.
2. Oil the dough and let it rise in a covered container.
3. Flump the dough out onto a nice layer of flour, and flour the top pretty well.
4. With your fingers, make a groove around the edge of the dough, about 3/4" in from the edge. This will form the rim of the baked pizza. Do it on both sides, and make the dough inside the groove very, very thin, so the rim dough is just hanging off the rest of the disk.
5. Without picking the dough up, use your hands to mash the part inside the groove, making it thinner and thinner. Stretch the dough as you go, to take up the slack. You want to pull it outward and make it into a progressively bigger circle.
6. When you feel cocky enough, pick it up and continue the process. You can toss it if you want. If you tear it, mash the edges of the tear back together.
7. You should end up with a 14" circle which is very, very thin inside but has a nice round lip all the way around. Put it on your screen (if you use one) and arrange it in a nice circle.

Now add 4-6 ounces of sauce, about 12 ounces of cheese, a little oregano, and bake. That's it. You'll love it. You may have to practice to get the amount of sauce right. You might want to add oregano and a little sugar. And a quarter teaspoon of salt. But that's all small strokes. The vinegar is the key.

You should end up with an absolutely perfect New York style pizza.

I'll get that photo up soon.

Thanks, Mike.

More

Posted by Steve H. at 7:35 PM | Permalink  

Hocks Rock

I had to throw out my gorgeous ham hocks and beans yesterday. I just didn't have room in the fridge. It broke my heart.

At least I inspired someone. Dan From Madison fixed himself some ham hocks with hominy. And you can read about it all, at this link.

Posted by Steve H. at 2:19 PM | Permalink  

Feed Them to Gaia

I want to thank everyone who showed up for my Nowlive show today. I'm still getting the hang of it. It's tough, managing callers while talking and observing the chat room. I had a caller or two hang up in disgust because I didn't see them. But I'll get the hang of it.

I was on the featured network after all, so maybe that will be a regular weekday thing. It's hard to tell. The people at Nowlive are so busy getting the business ramped up, it's very hard to communicate with them. I guess I'll keep doing noon shows as long as the network turns on while I'm on the air.

I didn't get a big response to my suggestion that vegans be rounded up and put in camps. Maybe I'll put the case forward more forcefully tomorrow.

Don't forget to listen to Elisson at 4 Eastern on Sunday.

Posted by Steve H. at 1:18 PM | Permalink  

Science Has Proven It

I don't think I'm on the Nowlive featured network today, but whether I am or not, I'll be doing a show at 12 noon Eastern. I'll be discussing my hatred of vegetarians and groundhogs. Tune in.

CLICK TO WATCH.

Posted by Steve H. at 11:53 AM | Permalink  

Mike Departs

I finally got rid of Mike. Sent him home with around 2 1/2 pounds of sweet, drippy, luscious strawberry cheesecake. I'm afraid he'll pull over and commit an unnatural act with it.

That kid can COOK. I can't remember ever having as much completely perfect food as I had tonight.

While we digested between rounds, we watched The Food Network. Fun programs. Impressive dishes. But like I said, and as Mike agreed, both of us preferred the stuff we had in front of us. Warm portabello mushroom tarts topped with cold salad? Cakes shaped like Popeye and Olive Oyl? Shove it up your ass. Impressive food is impressive, but good food is GOOD. There's a difference.

There is nothing like cooking and eating with someone who understands and appreciates food. He kept saying the same things I was about to say. Not trite foodie bullshit, but real impressions based on experience and knowledge won through hard work in messy kitchens.

I don't know what I'll do if he moves to Florida. I'll weigh 500 pounds.

He's going to return in 12 days. The plan is to divide things up. One of us cooks dinner, and the other cooks dessert. Man, that's some good Youtubin'.

Posted by Steve H. at 12:02 AM | Permalink  

The Tenacious D of Cooking

What's worse than two fat guys who would rather eat than breathe? I'll tell you what's worse. Two fat guys who would rather eat than breathe, who can cook the hinges off the very gates of hell.

I started the show by making the single best pizza I've ever made. Ordinarily, my pies are just very good, but I tinkered around with this one, and it was so good, any sane man would give his left nut just to sniff the crust. Then Mike made garlic rolls so divine they could have been the angels' droppings. My rolls are magical, and I think his may be even better. Then he made a ONE HUNDRED PERCENT PERFECT NEW YORK STYLE PIZZA. I mean, you would swear you were standing in Union Square, surrounded by dirtbags trying to sell you Jersey Joints.

After that, we hacked a couple of slices off my strawberry cheesecake. I think that was the point where I began to hallucinate. Great gaping rips began to appear in the shimmering fabric separating madness from reality. That is some good cheesecake, my friends. Mike and I have both eaten the New York crap, and we agree, mine poops on it from a very high precipice. In your FACE, Junior's. While I was cutting it, I licked a little bit of the strawberry goo off my thumb, and that alone made it necessary to brace myself and lean against the counter for support.

We're talking about opening a drive-through called "F___ You if You Don't Want Pizza." I guess we would run into zoning problems, however. The idea is this: Mike makes the pizza and rolls, and I make the cheesecake, and THAT'S ALL YOU GET, BITCHES. If you don't like it, take your sorry asses to Burger King.

We're going to see if we can eat more cheesecake. I'm not even sure it's possible.

I shot some video. You'll see it on Youtube sooner or later. You really have to see this guy work a batch of dough. I cried a little.

Okay, piss off. I think I can ram more food down my hole now if I really try.

Posted by Steve H. at 9:46 PM | Permalink  

Best Cheesecake Known to Man

Mike is opening an office in Delray Beach, for his company. So he's in town (nearly), and today we'll be getting together for chow.

The menu? Pizza (his recipe plus mine), as well as strawberry cheesecake. I don't have a photo yet, but here's one I made in 2004.

It tastes better than it looks, if that's possible.

This Sunday, I'll have a cheesecake video on my Nowlive show, so if you want the recipe, this is the way to get it. That will be at 7 p.m. Eastern. Take notes.

Posted by Steve H. at 4:14 PM | Permalink  

Nowlive Makes it Happen

The folks at Nowlive really came through for me tonight. They had to move a bigger show into my spot on the featured network, but they still managed to get me half an hour. I don't have stats for that time, but I know thousands of people tuned in.

On top of that, I got to follow Moxie, who was on earlier, so we were both warmed up.

Both shows went extremely well. I'm amazed at the difference months of practice have made. If you listen to stuff we did last year and compare it to our work tonight, the difference is huge. I used to ask you to tune in because I was desperate, but now I can actually recommend my show because it's entertaining.

Mox came up with a great audience involvement idea, where she read quotations and had people guess the speaker: Hillary or Hitler. Wonderful stuff. And it was really hard to guess.

The one thing I need to remember is to close the show when I'm done with my prepared material. After that, it becomes a BS session with friends, and the audience leaves.

Go over and listen to the archives and see what you think.

Also, here:

Posted by Steve H. at 1:40 AM | Permalink  

Sorry

I just found out my show won't be on the featured network at Nowlive at its regular time tonight. They're trying a different show. I applied for an open spot at 7 p.m. Eastern, but they haven't gotten back to me yet. The communication is primitive, because they use their internal comment system instead of email, so I have to keep refreshing my host page to see if they've gotten back to me.

If I'm not on at 7, I'll be on in my usual 9 p.m. slot. Either way, you'll see me tonight.

Posted by Steve H. at 6:10 PM | Permalink  

The Waiting is What Hurts

The beans are marvelous. But for geometrical reasons, I had to put the juice in a second pan to boil it down. My pressure cooker will only hold 5 ham hocks on one level, and I had 6, so the hocks made a pretty tall pile. That meant that in order to cover everything, I had to use a lot of water. So I ended up with lots of juice. Boiling it down in the pressure cooker would take all day and ruin the beans, so I decided to use a skillet instead. When it has been reduced by around half, I'll pour it back in.

I'll get the cornbread going shortly. I can't wait.

Posted by Steve H. at 5:29 PM | Permalink