Great Day

Mike and I spent the day running around. The mother of one of his employees died, and she’s Jewish, so you know what that means. A very prompt funeral. We had to run up to Delray to get Mike’s suit. We visited the Fort Lauderdale Gordon Food Supply, which beats the daylights out of the one here on Flagler Street. I took photos of some interesting goodies, and I’ll upload them eventually. After that we hit Sonny’s barbecue.

We talked a lot about our dysfunctional families, and I told him something that occurred to me this morning in the shower. As far as I can tell, families do not work without God, period. You may have some pieces of the puzzle: wealth, fame, looks, or maybe brains. Your kids may be healthy, and they may be achievers. Your marriage may last. But it won’t really work as a whole. There will be significant failure somewhere in the picture. There will be important problems you absolutely have no chance of fixing. I think the reason for this is the same reason we have physical pain. When you have physical pain, it tells you something is wrong. It tells you that you need to fix something. It can prevent you from making a problem worse. Maybe you need to have a tumor removed or a bone set. Without pain, you might not do what you need to do. The failures we experience here on earth tell us we need to turn to God. They tell us our lives do not work properly without him. And as you turn to him, the pain abates or disappears entirely or, very often, turns to joy and peace.

What kind of God would let you and your spouse and your kids and your siblings have peaceful, prosperous lives without him? It would be a disservice. It would prove he didn’t care.

Mike had a lot of insights into my family’s troubles, and I was glad to have his input. He seemed to benefit from what I had to say, too. We’re going to try to attend the Saturday evening service at my church. I told him God has been fixing my family, and I’m hoping he can see the same kind of healing in his own life.

In other news, the guy who sold me my lathe emailed. He’s been looking it over and running and cleaning it and getting it ready for shipping. He says it appears it has “seen very little use.” That’s exciting. I was puzzled at first, because it had sat in a prison for over forty years. I had assumed it had been used a lot in vocational training. Then I realized it might be difficult to get backward, hardheaded criminals to take advantage of a great opportunity to learn a lucrative trade. So maybe their stubbornness will cause me to receive a substantial benefit intended for them. The Bible says “the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just.” The lathe sale would be a pretty blatant example of unteachable people ignoring a blessing, leaving it to pass into the hands of someone more open to God’s instruction. Not that I am calling myself just. I do think I’m trying harder than most convicts.

I bought a gallon can of hot fudge today, just because I could. Sometimes I think I have a very big screw loose.

Look Out

Mike is in town, so the overeating started last night. Someone please intervene.

Today we have a number of options. Costco. Gordon Food Supply. And he was so impressed with my trash pile mahogany boards, he wants to make one. Go figure. He also wants to bust out the motorcycles.

I’m trying to get him to hang out long enough to visit church.

With a reader’s help, I think I figured out what I need to do about my router fence. All I need is something that extends out from the back side of the Biesemeyer. The parallelism is outstanding, and the precision is hard to beat. I could add a DRO to the Biesemeyer system, too, or I could must mount a dial indicator and some sort of screw adjustment on the router part. Anyway, this should be very easy compared to the harder solutions I found, and it should be much cheaper than the expensive ones.

I also have 3,000 pistol primers on the way! Do you care? Probably not. But I’m ecstatic. These things have been hard to find. And these are Federals, which may solve the problems I’ve had with .357 ammunition failing to fire properly. Federals are soft, and the new spring in my 27-2 is weak, so this should be a good combination. I also broke down and got a chronograph. There is just no way to avoid it. I can’t keep putzing around, taking a face shield to the range and praying the first shot doesn’t blow my 1911 apart. That is not the right way to work up a load. And I would very much like to create loads for Wolf primers, because they’re dirt, DIRT cheap.

Mike wants to make a video teaching people how to make 10-minute pizza. We ought to do it. I’d pay ten bucks for something like that, wouldn’t you?

Life is sweet

I Plead Guilty

I have depressing news about Mish Weiss. Don’t worry; the news about her health is great. What’s depressing is the way she has been treated.

Many people have been praying for Mish. Many of those people are Christians. And Christians want other people to become Christians. I certainly do; I don’t pretend otherwise. But it looks like some people got overexcited and used poor judgment, going overboard in their efforts to expose her to the gospel.

Mish wrote a polite response on her blog, stating that she did not wish to become a Christian. It’s her decision to make. God gives each of us that choice.

Since then, she has been receiving hate mail from people claiming to be Christians. I don’t say “claiming to be Christians” because I don’t think Christians could do this. They certainly could, and I’m sure some of the responsible people are Christians. I say it because it’s possible that some of the vicious morons who sent these emails were just posing as Christians to make trouble. Like the Democrats who call radio shows and use the phrase “lifelong Republican” to describe themselves.

One particularly fine person sent an email accusing Mish of hating Christians. Wasn’t that helpful and loving? She was also called “Christ-killer.” And worse.

I can’t believe there are Christians so stupid, bigoted, and vicious that they would use the term “Christ-killer.” The fact is, every Christian is a Christ-killer. We believe Jesus had to die, and chose to do so, in order to pay for our sins. That means he is our sacrifice. Our sins caused it. So we are the ones who caused the death of Christ. It amazes me that there are people who don’t understand that. Have you sinned? Have you accepted Jesus and asked for forgiveness? If so, you’re a Christ-killer. Get used to it.

A long while back, I got a ridiculous, self-righteous email criticizing me for not pushing Mish to accept Christ. I posted the text here, and I explained why this person was wrong.

Many Christians are unfamiliar with Jews and the Jewish mind. I’m more aware than most. I’ve been living among Jews since I was three. Half of the students at my high school were Jewish. I spent three years at Columbia University, which has a big Jewish population. I lived in Israel for four months. Aaron even got me in to some yeshiva classes.

I know that Jews feel threatened by Christianity. Christians were responsible for the Inquisition, pogroms, and much of what happened in the Holocaust. Hitler was hostile to Christianity, and he persecuted Christians, but many of the people who did the grunt work were Christians, and it was not unusual for them to tell Jews that persecution was justified because Jews killed Christ (I thought it was the Romans!). Some Catholic clerics helped the Nazis. On top of that, Jews believe they cease to be Jews if they accept Jesus, and they are extremely concerned about their dwindling numbers. They are afraid of disappearing as a people.

I am familiar with the sophisticated objections Jews have raised to the divinity of Jesus. I am aware that most Jews do not take proselytizing efforts gracefully; you can’t just give a Jew the same canned speech you would give any Gentile on the street and expect to get anywhere. In all likelihood, you’ll just alienate them and increase their antipathy toward your religion. I know these things. Many ignorant Christians do not. And I will not be judged by the ignorant.

When I got involved in the prayer campaign for Mish, I also knew that the Bible instructs us to look out for the Jews, without any requirement that they become proselytes. No strings attached. That’s the assignment. So I was perfectly content to pray and offer encouragement; I felt no need to badger this poor sick woman.

There is no Biblical precedent for badgering people. Find me an example in the New Testament. There is none. The early evangelists went from place to place, making their case. Those who chose, accepted Jesus. And that was the end of it.

The Bible tells us God calls people to become Christians. He knows who will listen and who will not. If that is the case, then telemarketer-style sales techniques are unscriptural and ultimately serve to harm the church by giving it a bad name.

I believe you pray for people to give in. You try to live a life that makes them jealous of what you have, so they feel moved to try to get it for themselves. You tell them about the benefits you’ve received. And if that doesn’t work, you need to give it a rest, because when you torment people in the name of Jesus, you only drive them farther away.

How stupid do you have to be to think Jesus wants you to call Mish Weiss a Christ-killer? How can a brain as small as yours even manage to coordinate things like breathing? Explain why you think this is likely to make her want to convert. I’m sure whoever wrote that idiotic email or comment reads this blog. Enlighten us all, oh holy one.

Self-righteous imbeciles have probably succeeded in undoing whatever positive work the rest of us managed to do over the last few months. Here’s what I have to say to them: Chabad should hire you to make sure no one ever converts to Christianity again. You are doing things they could never hope to do. I am ashamed to belong to the same religion as you. You are a disgrace. And you are taking God’s name in vain, pretending to serve him by expressing your hatred.

Okay, enough of that. Here is the good news. Mish’s blast cell count has dropped below 30%. That is fantastic. And her blood counts are up. The stronger she gets–I think I have this right–the better she’ll be able to tolerate treatment that could cure her. So the prayers are working. I mean Christian AND Jewish prayers. Nowhere does the Bible say God only hears the prayers of Christians, or that he only hears when you pray in the name of Jesus.

Let’s keep it up. We can’t ask for better results than this.

You Missed Me

I forgot to blog yesterday. Unbelievable. Maybe it’s a healthy sign. Also, the lathe search is driving me nuts. I keep asking experienced lathe users about the Grizzly G4003G versus an old Clausing 5914, and one day, they say, “The Grizzly is the most amazing tool yet created by the hand of man,” and the next day they say, “Chinese lathes are made from pot metal, plus they cause cancer.”

Mike says his brother wants to see the Hoginator, so here are photos.

That’s before I created the Teletubby smoke box, which can be seen below.

Apparently Mike got a good result on his angiogram, and his wife is annoyed. I think she was hoping for something she could use to persuade him to quit eating 9,000 calories per day.

There’s Some Lovely Filth Down Here!

This is going to be a weird day.

It already started out weird. I got a comment from a guy claiming to work for King Arthur Flour. Apparently they have a very limited sense of humor about their marketing approach. They sent me a junk email advertising a recipe for “doughnuts without frying,” and I wrote a short post saying what a disgraceful and disturbing idea that was. The comment I received was sincerely defensive. I think maybe somebody needs a little time away from the mill.

It’s a bad sign when an executive runs around defending his company in blog comments. Especially when he defends the company from humor instead of serious criticism.

To [probably] misquote Steve Martin in My Blue Heaven, “Everybody thinks they have a sense of humor, but they don’t, really.” A person who laughs when he sees other people fall down thinks he has a sense of humor. But if he can’t take or even detect a joke, he really doesn’t. A person who has a sense of humor laughs when he, himself, falls down.

It’s a wonderful thing. Humor takes the most miserable moments in life and turns them into causes for celebration. It’s bizarre, if you think about it. Think about all those home videos of ruined weddings. The cake falls over. A bird poops on the bride. Whatever. If the people in the video have a sense of humor, they break up. It’s the greatest thing they’ve ever seen. They all want a copy of the video. If they have no sense of humor, it’s a horror that will be relived for 50 years. And as long as she lives, the bride will use it to make life hell for those around her. It will form the basis for her permanent vendetta against fate. It will be her excuse for distributing misery like a runaway manure spreader. A lot of women would give anything for an excuse like that.

For what it’s worth, I use King Arthur flour. If I didn’t think they made good products, I would not be on their junk email list. They make a strange pizza blend which is pretty good, but it’s unavailable except at mail-order prices, so I only bought one bag. It’s long gone. I don’t know if their bread flour is any better than anyone else’s. I have made tons of pizzas for test purposes, and I have not noticed a difference I could put my finger on, but I got in the habit of buying King Arthur for the reputation, so I still have it in the kitchen. I made Texas toast with it last week, and Mike says he’s still in withdrawal. My favorite pizza flour, however, is all-purpose biscuit flour from Gold Medal or Pillsbury. Whatever is cheapest. Anything low in protein, with no leavening. I bought 00 flour, but I used it so rarely, the bugs got it.

Baked doughnuts are an abomination, like soy milk. I stand by that. A baked doughnut is a cupcake with a hole. Okay, sure, I have probably eaten baked doughnuts. I’m pretty sure Entenmann’s faux-chocolate doughnuts are baked. I’ve eaten them, but I have no illusions about what I’m getting. Frying rocks. Especially when you use a particularly tasty fat, like coconut oil.

And–this will make the King Arthur people even madder–the best doughnuts are full of potato starch, which cuts way down on the flour content. Oh well.

The concept of baking things like doughnuts in order to make them healthier is fairly ludicrous. The fat is the least harmful thing in a doughnut. The huge pile of refined carbs that shoot into your bloodstream as glucose ten minutes after you eat…that’s the problem. That and the calorie load. If I had to choose between giving up refined carbs and giving up healthy, versatile, delicious saturated fats, I’d drop the carbs in a heartbeat. Out of fear, more than anything else. You can’t jam yourself full of flour, rice, potatoes, and sugar all the time and expect to be healthy. If you take those things out of your diet, the fats pretty much cease to be harmful. Look up homocysteine.

That reminds me; I have to get to McDonald’s soon so I can get my weekly McBiscuit, dripping with salty grease.

The other weird thing about today is that I have to run down to the warehouse, put a new padlock on it, and figure out what to do with all the junk. If I’m going to have a Craigslist sale, I have to find out what I have and make a list. And I need to make sure that sweet Genie Superlift is safe.

I should take more photos. What do you do with a light globe two feet across? Surely someone will want it. It would be a great planter.

What am I going to do with a ten-foot-long workbench? Even if I get it out of the warehouse, it’s not the kind of thing you can just throw out. Maybe I can bust it up with a crowbar.

Dang, the deadline is drawing near. I better hit the drive-through.

Oh the Wrongness of It

Tonight I got the dumbest junk email. It came from King Arthur Flour. The subject was “Doughnuts without frying? Here’s the secret.”

Why on God’s green earth would I want doughnuts without frying?

FAIL FAIL FAIL

DELETE DELETE DELETE

Nirvana

What a feast. Mike and I cooked for my dad and my sister. Everything was from my cookbook. We had spare ribs, a beer-butt chicken, my Yukon Gold casserole, barbecue beans, and Texas toast. Good God, it was wonderful.

I thought we had ruined the meat at one point. We had to leave the smoker unattended, and when we got back, the meat was very dark. I figured creosote had attacked. But at dinner, it was sublime. The best barbecue I’ve ever had, far and away. I didn’t notice any creosote flavor. I’m not sure what happened. Maybe it was residue from burned Budweiser.

The Teletubby smoke box is magical, but I need to fix on an on-deck box for getting the wood burning. As it is now, you get some bitter smoke whenever you add fresh wood. Still, the results were magnificent.

Mike claimed the wood was the problem. We started with Publix Greenwise hickory, and then we had to change to something from Home Depot. I wasn’t there when he changed over, but he said the Home Depot wood gave off much less dark smoke.

Whatever. This was a dining experience I will never forget. It’s sad that I didn’t have time to make the macaroni and cheese. But then human beings were never intended to know that much pleasure here on earth.

Mike made some good contributions. He showed me that high heat is best for frying hash browns. I didn’t know that.

Don’t listen to the foodies. You don’t have to use liquid nitrogen or squid ink to make good food. Just pick something simple and do it perfectly. That other stuff is for idiots.

Pork is Everywhere

Mike is in town. Last night, we hit Gordon Food Supply. For us, that’s like going to a strip club. After that, we dined on masitas de puerco, moros, and yuca at El Exquisito in Little Havana.

We’ve been working on barbecue all day. The Hoginator has been revived, and I’m burning hickory chunks in the Teletubby smoke box!

What a pleasure it is to have Mike here. Who else will go to GFS with me? Who else completely understands why I smear beef fat on my ribs while I smoke them? Who else agrees that removing the membrane is for girly-men?

We have two racks of spare ribs and a Budweiser beer-butt going right now. Everything is rubbed, and the chicken has been injected with Jack Daniel’s, dark maple syrup, cider vinegar, and a few other things.

It’s beautiful. Now I have to start planning the Texas toast and other sides.

I’m using an open flame for smoke. Bill Karau, inventor of the Karubecue, made me self-conscious about creosote, so I am not doing blue, bitter smoke today. Even though I actually like it.

Bill has spiffed up his site. Maybe we’ll get more info later. Here it is: CLICK.

This is Why I Was Put on Earth

Today I’m doing the unthinkable. Making strawberry cheesecake and Champagne chicken for the second time in a month. A friend of the family lost his wife a while back, and my dad and my sister and I wanted to get him out of his house for a while. Naturally, the cooking fell to me.

I made the cheesecake last night, except for the topping. That’s in the works right now, and I’m brining the chicken.

I wish I could find Lucerne brand cream cheese here. A reader says it’s better than Philly, and that the cheesecake doesn’t crack as much. but I guess I’ll be okay. I also wish I had a Tupperware container big enough to hold the remains of a 10″ cheesecake.

I keep Googling lathes. I’m learning all sorts of stuff.

First, you can rehabilitate a lathe by scraping the bed ways. This costs over a thousand dollars if you have someone else do it. All you have to do is buy some obscure hand tools–not power tools, believe it or not–and get a book and practice for a long time. Weird. I have no interest in doing this, but it’s an interesting topic. I would have thought there was some kind of giant milling machine jig for this purpose. And I can’t understand how you can do this accurately with a blade on the end of a stick.

Second, Atlas lathes aren’t all that great. People who own them complain a lot about flexing and cheap parts that break. Right now, I can get a Craftsman lathe built by Atlas, within two-hour drive, for $850. But it’s only worth maybe $350, and it will never be a good lathe. Atlas did not apply its usual standards when making stuff for Sears, so this thing is a step down from Atlas, which is a step down from South Bend and so on.

Third, Rockwell and Sheldon made really fantastic lathes, but parts can be hard to find and/or expensive. I can’t understand why Delta wouldn’t continue making parts for Rockwell lathes, but that’s the way it is. These machines are supposed to be stiffer than other lathes, and the ways on the Rockwell models are very hard and resist wear. But if you can’t keep them running, what’s the point?

Some retired toolmaker not far from here is selling a huge toolbox full of machining stuff. Maybe I should check it out. I assume it’s things like tooling and calipers. But I really don’t want a freezer-sized toolbox in my garage.

This dinner is going to be TOO good. I really don’t know how food can get any better than this. I just put the goop on the strawberry topping, and I wish I could climb into the refrigerator and swim in the cheesecake.

Isn’t She Lovely

You thought this day would never come, but here it is:

How about that? And it WORKS. I can rest my fat on the side rails and hop up and down, and if the base is flexing, I can’t detect it. It should hold the saw just fine, even with the less-than-beautiful welds.

The design is not optimal; I’m limited by my tools and the amount of work I’m willing to do, plus what I’m willing to pay for steel and parts. But it’s much stronger than it needs to be.

I got much better performance out of the welder today. I tightened up the ground; this may have made the difference. I had no problems seeing the puddle or keeping the contact tip from welding to the wire.

In case you’re wondering who gave the best answer about removing rust and scale prior to welding, I think it was Ed Bonderenka. I believe he was the person who suggested a wire wheel for the grinder. I got a wheel and tried it, and it blows through rust and crap a paint removing wheel barely polishes. Wonderful.

I learned something new today: Hitachi drill bits are crap. At least they seem to be. I bought a big box of them, and I was trying to drill through the 3/16″ steel on the tabs that hold the wheels to the mobile base. The smaller bits didn’t seem to do anything, and the 1/4″ bit was really slow. I dug out my old Craftsman bits, and they went right through the steel. Go figure. It’s clearly time to get a Drill Doctor. I wasted maybe 20 minutes with that stupid Hitachi bit before I realized something was wrong.

I plan to grind off the scarier bits of weld, and then I’m going to go over the base with a brush, and then I’m going to hit it with a can of truck bed paint. I have some in the garage, and it’s much better than ordinary spray paint for this purpose. Once that’s done, I’ll shove the saw over to my hoist and see if it pulls the roof down while I try to put it on the base.

Man, this was great. I learned how to cope welded corners. I used my plasma cutter. I used the welder and the dry cut saw. I bought a soapstone holder, a wire wheel, and a scribe. I had tremendous fun. And now I can roll my bandsaw around the garage, so I can get it within reach of the new 220 socket I made.

I have a new table pin, three blades, and an Incra miter gauge for the saw, and I am DYING to do something with it.

Maybe some day I’ll make a better base for the saw. Now that I fixed the welder’s problems, I know I can make a much prettier base. But I think I’ll wait for a drill press or a mill. I did not enjoy making those stupid holes.

Another thing: I got a little Baldor grinder a couple of years ago. I thought it would be more than enough for my needs. WRONG. Because the radius is small, it’s hard to get stuff up against the wheel. I’m wondering what’s the best size. Eight inches? Surely not ten. That would weigh 200 pounds. I believe the one I have now is 6″. It’s wonderful, but just not big enough. It’s dandy for sharpening certain tools, and I used it to pretty up some of the base parts, but it’s limited.

I suppose the real answer is a belt grinder. I have to get to work on that eventually. The price of a big Baldor would more than cover the parts cost for a belt grinder, and a belt grinder does more. Man, that would be sweet.

Time to celebrate. I’m breaking out the fettuccine.

By the way, if you read about me helping Mike find Li’l Paul’s Smokehouse in Lebanon, Tennessee, the other night, you have been waiting for these photos.

Wing It

If you’re a guy, and you hate to cook, but you bought my book anyway just because you love me, let me reward you. Here is the lunch I just ate. It takes no skill at all, and boy was it good.

Buy a package of six or eight chicken wings. Salt them and sprinkle them with garlic powder. Preheat your oven to 425. Put the wings on a broiler pan and bake them for one hour. This is the recipe from the Frank’s Red Hot label. Obviously, it’s for non-breaded wings.

Wash a medium-sized baking potato and rub it with salt. Poke a few holes in the skin. Nuke it for 5 minutes. Turn it over. Nuke it for 5 more.

When the chicken is done, put it in a bowl with a tablespoon of bacon grease. If you have butter, add a tablespoon of that. Soak the chicken thoroughly in your favorite mild hot sauce (Texas Pete or Frank’s, maybe) and toss it in the grease so it gets coated with everything. If there is grease in the bottom of the broiler pan, add that.

Jam the potato full of sour cream. Pour the stuff in the bottom of the chicken bowl on top of it.

I also heated up a can of greens.

This was totally delicious. If deep-fried wings are better than baked, the difference is beyond my powers of detection.

I have been fooling with welding. Someone astutely suggested that my needle scaler might be a good tool for removing…scale. So I tried it. It works, but it dings the metal up a little. I finished up with a wire brush, and things look okay. I also tried hydrochloric acid. You won’t believe me, but when I took the metal out, it looked like the areas with scale had developed rust, and the rusty areas were rust-free but covered with scale. Seriously.

Sandpaper does absolutely nothing. A wire brush works okay, but it’s slow.

I think sand-blasting is the best answer. I should spring for a blaster and a refrigerated air dryer. I’m too cheap to get a cabinet. I’ll just blow sand into the yard.

Here’s something I can’t figure out. Where does the liquid go when you use an air dryer? Does it drain out of the machine somewhere? Hmm…web sources say it does. I guess that must be one reason these things cost so much. It must be a pain, building something that will drain water out of chilled, pressurized air, without releasing the air.

I should go ahead and drive to Harbor Freight. Water was squirting out of the needle scaler.

Ribs on Sale Again

On my trip to Home Depot, I dropped by Winn-Dixie. I had to. One of this week’s specials: rib roast, $4.99 per pound.

Come on. How is that fair? Just roast it and wave it under my nose, why don’t you?

Obviously, I bought a roast.

There are no Ribs

I may have found the answer to my rust removal problem: hydrochloric acid. The same stuff I use for taking zinc off steel before welding. It’s cheap, it’s easy to find, and supposedly, it works. So I’ll be giving that a try later.

I want to make one thing clear. I am not angry at the people who call me a tool addict. No, I’m just sorry for you. Because it’s so sad, that you think I have a problem. You’re the ones who have problems. You really should get help. And I’m saying that without anger, because I’m too good a person to let rancor get the best of me. And I’m fine, really. And…hey, I think I need a backhoe. I better check Ebay.

Call me “Nathan Hypertherm.” Apologies for subjecting you to Kennedy demagoguery.

Mike called last night. Thank God I was home. He was on the road in Lebanon, Tennessee, and he needed barbecue, and it was getting late. I offered to get on the web and help. Google offered about five restaurants in his area. I brought up a map and steered him to Li’l Joe’s Smokehouse.

It was just like The Matrix. “Operator, I need ribs. FAST.” “I got you, man. Take the next right and proceed three blocks.” Fortunately Joe Pantoliano was not there to pull the plug out of Mike’s head. Mike got to the restaurant right after they had closed due to slow business, and he persuaded them to sell him a pile of takeout. He got ribs and a barbecue baked potato. This is a potato stuffed with butter, sour cream, and pulled pork. He promised to email me a photo, but maybe Agent Smith intercepted it. Or even stole the potato.

AGENT SMITH: I’d like to share a revelation that I’ve had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your potato and I realized it’s not actually a side dish.

MIKE: How about I give you the finger, and you give me my potato?

Actually Mike is more like Morpheus. “Mikeus.”

MIKEUS: You are a slave, Stevo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Into a prison that you cannot taste or see or touch. A prison for your stomach.

STEVO: I’ll take the blue pill. And this cheesecake.

MIKEUS: I’m trying to free your belly, Stevo. But I can only show you the door. You’re the one that has to walk through it. If you still fit.

STEVO: You can’t scare me with this Gestapo crap. I know my rights. I want my phone call. Hello, Pizza World?

Something like that.

It’s so depressing. Mike eats pretty much whatever he wants, and I had oatmeal for breakfast again.

Off to Home Depot.

I’ll Have the Whale Bacon Smoothie

Elisson is opening a restaurant. I doubt his rabbi has cleared this.

Once Again, Bacon Comes Through

I have highly useful information.

A while back, I spotted a bag of Roegelein bacon scraps at Gordon Food Service. Naturally, I pounced. This is wonderful bacon. But it was getting old, and I hadn’t finished it. So I put it in a Pyrex dish to render the grease out of it. I got it started in the microwave, and then I baked it, covered, at 175-250. Mostly 175. At then end, it was dark brown and slightly crunchy, with kind of a glazed appearance. I realized…this is the perfect crust for my barbecue beans! Next time I make them, I’ll put about half an inch of this stuff on top before I bake it.

It’s really good.