Alert the Media

I have some beautiful new habanero gold pods, so I picked a big red shiny one and sliced about half of it, very thin, to try with my new hummus recipe. I picked the smallest pod I could find, but it was still big for a habanero. I also sliced three fresh cayennes up. Then I got out the pita and went to town.

I thought I would like the cayennes better. They’re tamer and sweeter, and you can pile more of them on a glob of hummus. But I sort of lean toward the habanero golds. Hummus does an amazing job of modulating the heat, so I was able to put two slices of pepper on each bit of torn-up pita. I ended up eating all three cayennes and half of the habanero. If there are any parasites in my body, for them, this is judgment day.

What a wonderful pepper this is. They’re typically the size of jumbo eggs. Very sweet, and deceptively hot.

Popular Stuff

I’m getting a lot of input RE hummus.

Once I added the tahini Jonathan recommended, the hummus improved. But I didn’t realize until today how much it had improved. It’s really very good. Better than store hummus. I didn’t expect that.

He says fresh hummus is best. I should email him about that. I’m wondering if he’s talking about the style they serve in kibbutz dining halls. Call me a traitor, but the best food in Israel (unless things have changed) is Arab food. It was worth getting dysentery for; I can tell you from experience. The falafel they sold in Afula was beyond description. I used to look forward to getting off the kibbutz just so I could have food made by Arabs. The hummus they had in our dining hall wasn’t spicy. I can see how a mild hummus like that would be better on the first day, but it seems like my hummus is getting better. And it’s loaded with garlic and cumin and hot sauce. Highly seasoned foods tend to improve in the fridge.

Last year, I located a lady in Trinidad for the purpose of obtaining obscure peppers. I hooked her up with a pepper forum, and she ended up supplying a lot of people in the US with Trinidad Scorpion and 7 Pot pepper seeds. Last week, out of the blue, she sent me seeds for yellow 7 Pot peppers, which I had never heard of. They’re usually red. That was nice of her. I better get them growing.

I’m thinking about peppers because of that and because of the hummus. My habanero gold bush has already produced a second crop of huge peppers, and I need to do something with them. I’m thinking that the next time I make hummus, I should toss a minced habanero in there. Hot peppers are supposed to have health benefits, such as decimating digestive-tract cancers. And this week I learned that hummus can neutralize a tremendous amount of pepper heat. So by eating hummus regularly, it should be possible to get a decent dose of hot peppers without burning holes in my gullet.

Cayennes would surely be better, though. It still irks me to know that peppers from Home Depot taste better than most of my exotics.

People are telling me to add butter beans to make the hummus creamier. As I recall, the better recipes I had in Israel were very creamy, but here in the US, it all seems a little grainy. I’m not sure. I don’t really care, though.

Today is the sabbath, and every week, the sabbath teaches me something new. This week I am coming to appreciate the pleasure of having the sabbath rescue me from something I don’t want to do.

Yesterday I slaved in the garage, trying to organize things and repair my workbench. It was a long, sweaty ordeal. Were today not Sunday, I’d have to go back in there and get back to it. Hey, I’m not lazy. I’m just pious. No, really.

Heh heh. That worked out pretty good.

As good as a kibbutz-style breakfast is with pita, it would be way better with hot naan or poori. But those breads are so greasy it would be like eating a stack of pancakes.

The Usual

Someone asked me for my hummus recipe. I’ll tell you what I’ve got so far.

Yesterday I glanced at some online recipes. You can probably guess how much I trust them. I did my own thing. I wrote about the results, and I inquired about tahini, which I had not yet added to the recipe. Johnathan said tahini was essential, so this morning I added some, and it did the trick. It adds a peculiar bitterness you can’t get from lemon juice or vinegar. He was absolutely right.

The results are good enough to post, but you may be able to do a lot better. I think I’m going to add more garlic next time. The reason this is worth posting isn’t that the recipe is so great. It’s that prepared hummus is obscenely expensive, and this stuff is nearly free.

INGREDIENTS

2 (around 14 oz. each, I guess) cans garbanzo beans, drained
juice of 2 lemons–buy 3 just in case
1 tsp. cumin
4 cloves garlic
3 tbsp. olive oil
1/4 tsp. salt
2 tbsp. tahini (not prepared sauce)
1/2 tsp. paprika

I also added a ton of Crystal hot sauce, which I can still barely taste. I’ll bet I added a quarter of a cup.

Toss this stuff into a food processor and blend until it looks like hummus. Save the water from the canned beans until the end, and add it judiciously if you have to. The mixture may be dry. I’ll bet cooking your own beans would make it better.

If I had it to do over again, I think I’d omit the Crystal and toss in part of a habanero, or maybe–better–three or four fresh cayennes. I don’t know if the paprika serves any purpose. It’s just ground-up red peppers. It’s a nice thing to dust on the top of a mound of hummus, with a little olive oil and a couple of black olives, before you serve it.

Johnathan says hummus should be fresh. He knows more about it than I do. My plan is to make it once a week and eat it for five days. If it’s not as good as fresh, I’ll survive. It sure beats oatmeal. I think he also said the cumin was not standard, but I like it.

Here is what I had for breakfast today. I cut a quarter of a big sweet red pepper in strips. Did the same with an entire carrot and a quarter of a big cucumber. Meant to add a tomato, but I forgot. I put three globs on my plate: sour cream, cottage cheese, and hummus. Added two boiled eggs. I tossed a big whole-wheat pita on it and made myself an iced tea. This is pretty much what I used to eat for breakfast and dinner on the kibbutz, except that they served white toast. I think it’s better than oatmeal, which is carb soup. And it’s better than the five eggs I used to eat, because it’s lower in cholesterol, for which my gall bladder will hopefully thank me. You don’t really need a fork. That’s what the pita is for.

I find that if I eat too much pita with the meal, I feel bad afterward. Damn carbs.

I’m thinking I should slice up carrots, cucumbers, and peppers every Sunday night and cram them in spoilage-resistant containers for the rest of the week. That will give me a good head start and make breakfast easier. They have new chemical-impregnated containers you can buy, which are supposed to keep vegetables fresher.

I don’t use low-fat dairy stuff. It’s disgusting.

It may sound crazy, me eating vegetables. A lot of people don’t know how much Southerners love vegetables, whether cooked or fresh. My mother used to make forty-mile round trips to Homestead, Florida, just to get tomatoes and onions and corn. I remember watching a prosecuting attorney up in Kentucky, telling my grandfather about his home-canned collard greens. You would have thought he was talking about canned diamonds. Southerners get as excited about good vegetables as Yankees do about great desserts. Very strange.

You know what I miss? Falafel. The falafel they make in Afula, Israel is worth handing the country over to the Arabs for. Nearly. But it’s a huge pain to make. I think I made it too hard by using way too much oil. I’ll bet I could come up with a recipe that would stomp restaurant falafel, but I’d still be unable to duplicate the giant assortment of condiments falafel joints in Israel use. Oh, man. Falafel with ground-up habaneros in it? Are you kidding me? That would rock.

In other news, I got my Caldwell HAMMR machine rest put together. Sort of. This is like a Ransom rest, only cheaper. It must be fairly good; some magazine writers admit they use it. It turns out you have to attach a piece of wood to the bottom of it, and then you clamp the wood to your shooting bench. Oh, no. Oh, woe is me. Work. The thing I dread. Oh, well. I get a chance to fire up the table saw. I have an old piece of plywood (sign from my realtor days) that I plan to use. What’s the best way to seal up the edges of a piece of 3/4″ plywood so splinters don’t shed?

I don’t know yet whether Trail Glades will let me use this thing. I plan to set it up and start shooting, and they can raise hell if they want.

In addition to gluttony, I am trying to get a grip on laziness these days. I feel like it’s sneaking up on me. I should be somewhat more active than I am. There are things I’ve been putting off. I used to have this idea that refraining from sinning all that much was all I had to do to be a good Christian, but now I realize you have to be conscious of all of your weaknesses, and you have to try to overcome them

I read from the book of Luke last night, in The Complete Jewish Bible. The editor says the Acts of the Apostles follows from Luke as though it were a second volume. I didn’t know that.

One of the interesting ideas in the commentary is that we are too hard on the Pharisees. The editor, David Stern, believes that scriptural criticisms leveled at the Pharisees are aimed at specific groups and individuals, not the Pharisees as a whole. And that makes sense, because the Bible says some of them supported Jesus. One of them gave Jesus his own tomb. And supposedly, they were reformers, and Jesus may have been associated with them. I think things like this concern Stern, because Jewish behavior in the New Testament has been used as an excuse for anti-Semitism and the ridiculous “replacement theology.”

I don’t really worry about it, because I don’t think I was put here to punish people who offend God.

Hope I remember how to use that saw.

No Pork Involved

Anyone got a good recipe for hummus?

I have been trying to eat healthier stuff in the middle of the day. My dream is to return to the kibbutz plan. Breakfast and dinner light but similar. Midday meal bigger, with meat.

Here is a horrible admission. I don’t really endorse total gluttony. When you want really good food, you should use good, unhealthy ingredients. But you can’t eat that crap all the time or in unlimited amounts. Sadly. And gluttony is a sin. Or close to it. And just about every health problem I have is fat-related.

So I would like to reform the one daily meal which gives me real problems. Breakfast and dinner I can control. Lunch gets crazy, because I forget to eat, and then my blood sugar drops, and then I find myself chugging from the honey jar and following up with a bowl of Sour Patch Kids.

When I was a kibbutz volunteer, we started the day with a big dish of nothing, at 5 a.m. Then at 8, we had breakfast. In fact, that was the end of my workday. Pick a cubic yard of grapefruit per day, and you’re free, regardless of the hour. At breakfast time on the kibbutz, they had big carts loaded with fresh vegetables and dairy stuff, as well as hummus, eggs, and porridge. Which is thick Cream of Wheat. I think.

It was a good deal. I would eat a couple of steamed eggs (seriously), with cottage cheese, sour cream, toast, and vegetables. At night, we got the same thing, so we didn’t go to bed stuffed. And fiber was not a problem. Especially since I ate a grapefruit every day on the job.

Those steamed eggs were the weak link in the chain. I have no idea where they got the idea of steaming eggs, but the machine that did it turned out some very strange items. Sometimes you’d peel an egg and find a burned place inside it. And the yolks were green. Perhaps out of respect for the prophet Samuel I Am.

Lunch was usually a bit lame, but healthy.

The other day I bought hummus and pita and vegetables. And as you probably can guess, a tiny container of hummus cost around forty thousand dollars. Okay, maybe a little less. But it was a lot. Today I made my own, and I got a pint for maybe a buck.

I was worried that the online recipes I had found were no good, so I used my own judgment. Two cans of garbanzo beans, juice of two lemons, four cloves garlic, teaspoon cumin, quarter-teaspoon salt, two tablespoons olive oil, and roughly a quarter of a cup of Crystal hot sauce. Which was not nearly enough. I didn’t put tahini in it, because I wasn’t sure tahini was standard.

Figured out a couple of things. First of all, lemon juice is stupid. I seem to recall this from making my own tahini in the past. It’s just not acidic enough. Next time, vinegar. Second, don’t add any liquid until you have all the ingredients in there, because it’s real easy to make it too wet.

It was okay, but I think tahini is needed. I can’t believe how much hot sauce it soaked up. Next time, I think I’ll blend a couple of fresh cayennes into it. I think that with a little effort, I should be able to blow away the store stuff for maybe an eighth of the cost.

These are Today’s Themes

I gritted my teeth and watched Hillary Clinton for a while last night, hoping–I know this is crazy–that she might do the humble, honest thing and make a short concession speech.

I know. I know. I am an incurable idealist.

After maybe fifteen minutes of what was clearly a Bizarro victory speech, I had to change the channel. While observing politics, I have seen cheerful losers. I have seen gracious losers. Until last night, I had never seen a loser who was cheerful and gracious because she couldn’t tell the difference between defeat and victory. It is as though Al Gore laid his hands on her and transferred his special spirit of craziness.

Only a liberal could be so unacquainted with the concept of rules that she would persist, at this point, in thinking she was the nominee. You have to give liberals credit. We give up when we know we’re wrong. Liberals get back up and yell “‘Tis but a scratch!” Imagine playing Monopoly with a person like that. Every game would end only after a costly lawsuit, with David Boies arguing that everyone knows you get money when you land on Free Parking.

I guess it’s good for Republicans. John McCain can sit around and wait while Hillsy and Snobama eat each other alive. I haven’t contributed a dime to the campaign, simply because I haven’t seen any need to. If McCain gets the money now, he’ll blow it on ads that will run way too early. He needs to wait until the Democrats have a candidate the public takes relatively seriously.

I am getting comments about the Colt Python revolver. One commenter seems to think I own one. I don’t. I was Windows-shopping out of boredom, and that’s how I came across the Python. I knew it existed, but I hadn’t really read much about it until yesterday.

I was complaining because my Googling brought a disturbing revelation: Pythons are too weak to stand up to real .357 ammunition. One reader says Ruger is the answer. I know I’ll catch it from Ruger owners, but some of those guns are a bit frumpy. Even the grips are awful. In fact, I think that’s the main problem. Why didn’t Ruger pay an industrial designer five hundred bucks to pretty up the plans before they went into production?

I guess they look pretty good once you get new grips, and quality makes up for a certain amount of ugliness. Hey, I own Glocks.

A GP100 is a tempting item. Available for under $500. Very tough. Accurate. I think I paid around $650 for my 6″ Smith. You can get an old Security Six for like $300. Some people claim the Security Six is better than the GP100. Don’t ask me. No idea. Here’s a GP100.

That one comes with Hogue grips. Same ones I have on the Smith, I think. I don’t like them–I think they feel wobbly–but they look better than Ruger’s own grips.

Here is what would be fun. Buy a 6″ GP100 and have it ported and shortened to 5″. And I don’t see anything on Ruger’s site about an idiotic internal lock on the gun (like the one Smith shoves down your throat). I found a site where some guy shows you how to do your own Ruger trigger job. That might be fun.

Is it okay to have a blued gun ported, or will the gases eat the barrel’s finish? I know Mag-na-port will do it, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good idea.

Incidentally, it looks like Cabela’s is a much better place to look for used guns than Gunbroker.

I don’t know why I’m writing about this trivial stuff, since today is WINN-DIXIE EMAIL AD DAY. Let’s see what I can buy with my Customer Reward card.

Oh, man! They’re having a “MEGA-MEAT SALE!”

Pork chops (assorted), buy one, get one. Same deal for boneless chicken breast.

Drumsticks, 99 cents per pound. Wish I knew how to get the “cents” character out of this keyboard.

Center-cut pork chops, buy one, get one.

Wings, $1.79.

Hickory Sweet bacon, buy one, get one. This is good bacon.

Lamb chops, buy one, get one. Oh, yes. It may be time for lamb stew.

They also have boneless top sirloin for cheap. If that’s the same thing as palomilla steak, I am in business.

Buttery and Burned

Here, try this.

INGREDIENTS

8 golf-ball-sized red potatoes cut in eighths
1 stick butter
1-2 cloves garlic, pressed
salt
pepper

Melt the butter. Put the potatoes, butter, and garlic in an oven-safe dish. Add salt and pepper to taste. Toss until mixed. Bake covered at 400 degrees for about an hour, until the potatoes soften. Remove the cover and bake until they get a little burned. If you want, hit them with grated cheese.

Really good. And it’s extremely easy. The big problem is, you’ll make more than you need, and you’ll have to throw them out to keep from eating them.

This recipe will make a decent side dish for maybe three hungry people.

Life’s Essential Components

Is this my lucky day or what? My weekly Winn-Dixie Internet ad arrived this afternoon.

Boston butt, $1.49! Not bad.

Ground chuck, my favorite type of burger, $1.48!

Hmm…that’s the only exciting stuff this week. Has the gravy train run off the track for good? I certainly hope not.

Reloading is as confusing as ever. First, I was told only to use “published loads.” Then I was referred to websites where any fool can post load data; even to me, that seemed crazy. After that, I found a published load in a reloading journal, and I figured it had to be okay, but a reader is now telling me it’s not good enough that it’s published.

I have been using 5.2 grains of Unique with 230-grain cast round nose bullets, and I said I might like to go up to 6.0. I was told that was a scary amount of powder to use in that load. Okay, no problem. Then I got the reloading magazine, and one of the loads they featured was exactly what I had considered doing. It was 6.0 grains of Unique and the bullet I’m using now. But I’m being warned that it’s not good enough that it was published, and that I should still work up to it. The magazine didn’t publish a minimum and maximum, so I figured 6.0 meant 6.0.

I will never get this stuff figured out.

The Unique thing doesn’t matter, now that I think about it. As things stand now, I think 5.2 is just swell, and I’m not really interested in changing, because it will mean spending more on powder. But I would like to know what I’m doing. In fact, the only change that interests me is trying a new load with HP-38 or Winchester 231, because the reloading magazine guy seemed to like it.

I am wondering if I should get a chronograph. They’re fairly cheap. As I understand it, “reading” cases for pressure signs is a discipline packed with mythology and BS, so I figure the smart thing is to go ahead and find out how fast the bullets go.

The press is giving me fits today. The primers for my .38 Super cartridges keep failing to seat or failing to feed, so powder pours out of the primer holes into the workings of the machine, and it’s just not good. I can’t figure it out. I’m wondering if these cases have smaller holes than the ones I reloaded earlier. I really have to whack the lever to make the primers go in fully, and that’s bad, because it can make a little powder fly out of cases that haven’t had bullets seated in them. Maybe the intelligent thing is to size and prime all of them and then run them through again to add powder and lead.

I am still not happy about the way the press mounts to the bench. It’s bolted down as firmly as possible, and the bench doesn’t flex noticeably, but the press still rises a little in front when I operate it. You would think Hornady would have stuck a third bolt hole on it for people with this problem. I guess I’ll have to come up with my own solution. I want it to be completely solid. Maybe case lube would help, by reducing the force I have to put on the handle.

I found a local range that will rent me a Performance Center 1911, so for twenty bucks, I can find out what all the fuss is about. I think I should do it. If it shoots just like my SW1911, there will be no point in moving to a more expensive gun.

Tomorrow is a range day. Too bad Mike won’t be there. But nobody put a gun to his head and forced him to live in New Hampshire. As far as I know.

In my case, that’s what it would take.

Trinidad Scorpion Pepper

I said I would try a Trinidad Scorpion pepper today, and I am true to my word. I just ate a slice the size of a Lifesaver. I only have two ripe pods, and they’re both small, so I cut through the middle of one and hoped for the best.

It doesn’t seem all that hot when you chew it, but once it gets going, it just won’t stop. It gets hotter and hotter and hotter for like five minutes. It has a nice, sweet, fruity taste, but after a while, you forget all about that and just want to die.

I can’t say it’s the hottest pepper I’ve ever had. I think my white habaneros and fataliis are worse. And for some reason, the fatalii heat jumps on you instantly; I’m not the only one who has noticed this.

I had an idea while I was eating it. Chili made with pork and apples. I don’t think beef would work with apples. I’m kind of stuck on the beans, though. I like beans in my chili; I’m not sure they’ll work with apples. Maybe white beans.

I feel better now, but I’m staying close to the bathroom. I’m not crazy.

I think this is a useless pepper, unless you have the tolerance of a cast iron bathtub. But it’s fun to have around, since it’s rare and legendary. Some believe it’s hotter than the bhut jolokia.

I have a number of huge pods about to get ripe. Seeds will be available.

Gas Mask Required

My habanero gold bush gave me an embarrassment of peppers. That’s the correct term, I’ve decided. A pride of lions, a murder of crows, an embarrassment of peppers. Because peppers produce so prolifically, you can’t find uses for them, and it’s embarrassing.

I couldn’t stand to let them rot. So I took every last one off the bush, fed it through a food processor, and added enough fresh lime juice to keep the result from spoiling. It would be even better with a little garlic and maybe a bit of oil, but it should be very good just as it is. These things are so sweet and fruity, they’re perfect for this use.

Aaron hates pepper sauce with vinegar. Lime juice is a pretty good alternative.

I wore nitrile gloves while I worked on the peppers, but I’ll bet anything I still got nailed. I’m afraid to put my hands near anything sensitive.

My Trinidad scorpions are turning red. I plan to try one tomorrow.

A Solid B+

Just fixed my first prime rib. I smeared it with crushed garlic, covered it in salt, and roasted it. I gave it 15 minutes at 450 and then lowered the heat to 350 and cooked it until it hit 130.

I would very much have preferred 120 or 115, but my father never learned to eat beef cooked to a cautious medium, so I had to jack it up. It was surprisingly pink for 130, but definitely overcooked by my standards.

I thought it was too tough. I’m not saying it was tough, per se. It was tender. But compared to what it should have been, it was a little disappointing. I also thought the salt crust was a bad idea. I now suspect that the beef should be salted generously but not crusted, and it should be done at least one day in advance.

I think Bobby Flay is just plain wrong when he says to cook prime rib at 350. If I had cooked it at 250, it would have been a thousand times better. And a week is not enough aging. It works fine for steaks, but prime rib isn’t worth a damn if it doesn’t stink a little.

Next time I’m going to roast it in a bag at 250. When I hit 100 degrees, off comes the bag. Then I’ll jack the heat to 450 to brown it. I’ll bet it will be perfect. I’m also going to age it for two weeks.

It seems like the quality of the beef is more critical for a roast than for steaks. My aged choice steaks are very, very good. Nearly as good as prime. But this was noticeably inferior to the real thing.

I guess it sounds like I’m hammering it, but it was a great meal. It just wasn’t what it could have been.

Serves me right for letting the Food Network fool me again. Are they ever right about ANYTHING?

Skip to the Parts That Interest You

I have a lot of housekeeping to do today. I have been neglecting emails for maybe a week, and if I don’t catch up, no one will ever email me again, except spammers.

Speaking of spam, I got a really dumb one the other day. The subject line advertised “Oprah’s fat burner.”

Would YOU buy that?

“Yul Brynner’s hair restorer.” “Steve H.’s tips for picking up hot chicks.”

I was not tempted.

I complained that I can’t use my .38-caliber dies to make three different calibers, unless I am willing to adjust the dies every time I go from one caliber to another. People suggested using spacers. Thanks for the help, but I don’t see it working. If you put a spacer under the rim on the bushing, the bushing won’t seat. If you put a spacer on top of the bushing, the locking collar won’t work. At least I don’t think it will. Then there is the problem of finding something suitable and then figuring out how to grind it to within a thousandth of an inch of the thickness I need.

If only I had been a total man and made myself a belt sander. I think a belt sander with a disk on the side would do it.

Og says the sizing die doesn’t need to be adjusted for height. I thought that sounded crazy, but I guess it’s right, since the measurement on that die is from the bottom of the case. But that leaves me with two dies that have to be changed, and I don’t think I can buy them without picking up a sizing die in the same package.

I’m wondering if I should get a couple of match-grade dies. I don’t know how much difference it makes. I didn’t know they existed until I already had my plain old “custom grade” dies. I’m inclined to think that tiny imperfections in the bullets make more difference than dies. I shot one bullet yesterday that was a little dinged up, and I suspect it was the reason I got a wicked flyer.

When Mike was a kid, he used to hack up bullets and then shoot them to see what they did. He says they made wonderful sounds. Mike and I did a lot of fantastic, stupid things together. This is not one of them. Although he was there when I took a largemouth bass with a .30-30.

I’ve been reading about casting bullets. There are two reasons I didn’t start out that way. First, I’m not sure I want to screw with alloying lead to make it hard enough for 1400-fps rounds. Second, it looks like a huge pain. In The ABCs of Reloading, they talk about it. Apparently you have to get tiny molds that only hold a few bullets, and casting each batch requires pouring, cooling, and so on. It must take half a day to do 50 rounds. On the up side, this would make shooting nearly free. The brass and lead are most of the cost. And I don’t pay for brass, except eventually (when I run out) .38 Super.

So far, Laser-Cast has made a lead believer out of me. I don’t know if it was the Unique or the bullets, but the rounds I shot made me very, very happy. I am sorry to confess that I haven’t cleaned the gun yet, but I would be amazed if ~700 fps rounds left anything in the barrel.

I’ve been told that Hodgdon makes a powder that is interchangeable with Unique, yet which produces less crap. If I could confirm that, I’d go ahead and buy a large jug. I’d hate to put 5.1 grains of Hodgdon in a round and then find out it’s twice as powerful as Unique.

I’m sorely tempted to buy a 1911 with target sights. If I could narrow my groups by an inch, I’d be Boss of the Range. At least in my own mind, which is all that matters. I don’t know if better sights would get me there. I am not sure why I got carry sights on the SW1911. I wanted to be able to carry the .38 Super on pimp occasions, but generally, carrying a huge 1911 seems like a bad idea. Unconcealed, sure. Concealed? Less than ideal.

I know I’m boring 75% of my readers to death with guns. So here is some food stuff.

I bought a $6/pound rib roast at Winn-Dixie last week, simply because there was no way I could pass it up, and it has been aging since Sunday. I have decided I want to fix prime rib for me and my father, instead of cutting it into steaks. According to Bobby Flay, it’s a simple matter of roasting at 350 until it hits 135 inside. Does anyone know if this will work?

I plan to do 130. If it were just me, 120. But my dad goes nearly medium-well. I plan to cover it with kosher salt and mashed garlic. Wish I knew how to make horseradish sauce. Maybe I can find out.

I completely lose my mind over prime rib, but I’ve never made it. The rib steak is the main thing that justifies the existence of a cow. Everything else is second-rate. Well, except for ice cream. If I pull this off, in the future, it will be tough for me to choose between steaking and cooking whole roasts.

Let’s see. Religion. I’m all excited about my new books (Aaron: don’t look!). First, I bought The Complete Jewish Bible. The leather version isn’t all that much more than the paperback, and it should last longer, so that’s what I got. I also got The Complete Jewish New Testament Commentary. These books were written by and for Messianic Jews. I started reading in earnest last night. It’s fantastic. I can’t recommend the OT/Hebrew Bible part so much, because it has no commentary book to go with it. But I’ve been reading Matthew (Mattityahu) with the commentary on the side, and it’s wonderful.

I’m inadvertently learning a lot about Hebrew. Before I got these books, it had occurred to me that Jews described Hebrew as if it were basically a giant collection of puns. And so far, these books bear out that suspicion, in spades. It’s no wonder the Jews go crazy interpreting the Bible. The layers of meaning in Hebrew scripture are worse than The Matrix.

I keep getting little bursts of illumination. For example, I figured out that the birth name of the singer Matisyahu is probably Matthew. The name Matthew is “Mattityahu” in the Bible I bought, and Jews in Israel tend to use “T” where American Jews use “S” (shabbos/shabbat), so Matisyahu is probably the same as Mattityahu. Am I right?

It’s very slow going. It took me about an hour to get through three or four chapters of Matthew.

Sometimes it’s annoying, because the guy who edited the Bible and commentary (Daniel H. Stern)corrects beliefs Christians accept without question. But that’s what I bought the book for, so I shouldn’t complain. Christians often have an unhealthy pride about their relationship with God, as if we were chosen to know all the answers, because we’re so much nicer than the Jews. But the reality is, Messianic Jews have a much better background for understanding the New Testament. We need to accept that and realize that when Christianity drifted away from its Jewish roots, we lost things only Jews can restore to us.

As Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein–not Messianic–likes to point out, prophecy says a time will come when ten gentiles will grab the hem of a Jew’s garment and ask to be taught about the Torah. Looks like that’s happening.

It’s amazing how often Stern confirms things I already suspected. For example, I think “the Kingdom of God” often refers to God’s dominion inside us. I assume God has been helping me along, providing me with insight.

For about 20 years, I’ve suspected that Zerubbabel, in the book of Zechariah, was a type of the Holy Spirit. I wish I knew what Stern thinks about him. And sometimes I wonder if the Third Temple will be a physical building. It’s clear that Jesus expected his followers to be a living temple. And Paul used the word “temple” to describe the human body. I think that when Jesus drove the money-changers out of the Second Temple, it symbolized the Holy Spirit driving counterproductive earthly motivations out of believers.

I also got a copy of Corrie ten Boom’s Tramp for the Lord. It takes up where The Hiding Place left off. She was supposed to be killed in a concentration camp, but the Germans released her by mistake, and she went on to become a traveling evangelist. A “missionary to America.” Is that a humbling phrase, or what?

Wonderful book. Too short.

The more good stuff you expose yourself to, the easier it is to be a Christian, and the more peace you have. Something to think about the next time you buy a book or turn on the TV or listen to music. This lesson has been helpful to me.

Let me know what you think.

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.

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.

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.

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.