The Food Apocalypse Arrives

NOTE: CLICK “DEATH BY FORK” LINK IN LEFT SIDEBAR FOR MORE INFO.

It occurs to me that I have readers now who may not know much about my cookbook. So I thought I should tell you a little about it.

I can’t remember when I had the idea. It was probably in the Nineties. A little voice in my head told me to write the world’s unhealthiest cookbook and call it “Eat What You Want and Die Like a Man.” I coined that phrase, regardless of where you may have seen it since. I thought people were getting too damned self-righteous and contentious about food. People actually get angry when you talk about meat and lard and eggs and so on, and that’s insane. A person who can get angry about the food another person eats is a controlling person with no sense of boundaries. It’s nobody’s damn business what you eat.

Aside from that, the Food Nazis are attacking our culture. We accumulated a lot of food knowledge over the centuries, and these self-appointed dictators are erasing it from our memory. Want to know the real way to make a fried egg? You fry bacon in a cast iron skillet and fry the egg in the grease. Want to know what kind of shortening real biscuits are made with? Bacon grease. Or lard. The best pie crusts are made with lard. The best fries are cooked in beef fat. People have forgotten things like that, because of the damn Food Nazis. There are many dishes that simply can’t be made well without unhealthy ingredients. There is no such thing as a good, healthy cheesecake. There is no such thing as a good, healthy brownie. There is CRAP which people PRETEND is good. But it’s not.

I get sick of hearing people who don’t know what good food is, perpetuating the tired, transparent lie that you can cook just as well with healthy ingredients. And it irritates me that they’ve managed to get their awful vegetable grease and lowfat milk and so on into products like ice cream and cookies, which exist solely to taste good. It’s like putting a Prius engine in a Ferrari. It does not work.

Obviously, you shouldn’t eat fattening food every day. But what if you do? Isn’t that your right? Of course it is. You have a right to eat what you like. What you don’t have a right to do is to tell other people what they can put in their bodies. It’s a horrifying encroachment on a person’s most basic rights. Today they tell you you can’t drive an SUV or own a gun or eat a pizza. Tomorrow, they tell you which books you can read.

Once in a while, just for the experience, you should eat really good food, and sometimes that means food that’s loaded with fat or sugar or white flour or salt. And I can help you do that.

Even though all this is true, the food isn’t really the point of the book. The point was to have an excuse to write humor essays. I really let loose. I had a ball. I wrote a macaroni and cheese recipe in the voice of Hunter S. Thompson. I wrote doughnut recipes in the voices of Al Franken and Bill O’Reilly. I wrote a French fry recipe in the voice of Christopher Walken. Here’s a taste.

Soon we’re in Steve’s living room, and I’m sipping my Campari—which is a little strong, but I say nothing, because Christopher Walken is a gracious guest—while a couple of my boys hold Steve’s head under the water of his fifty-gallon fish tank.

Steve has tetras. Tetras and those other little—what do you call them?—dwarf cichlids. Little pansy fish that don’t even fight. I realize it is a matter of taste, but me, I always went for the heavy artillery. Oscars. Piranha. Small sharks. Some people feed their carnivorous fish goldfish. I fed mine Yorkies.

I cannot abide a small defiant dog that looks like a Slinky.

I give him a few minutes of that—in, out, gasp for breath, in, out, gasp for breath—while I check out his CD collection. I’m an LP man myself. Gotta have vinyl. Gotta. But he has some good stuff there. Hot Fives and Sevens, remastered. Sweet. Needs a little Bobby Vinton, of course, but maybe his tastes haven’t matured to the extent where he can fully appreciate the subtleties of “My Little Neon Rose.”

When the time is right, I have my boys pull his head out and sit him on the sofa and get him a towel and some Bosco. He has Bosco in his cupboard. I respect that. That bought him some points. I’m a Bosco man myself. Some guys like Ovaltine. That’s okay, I guess. I shot a guy in the face for drinking Ovaltine. Once. But I was young. Full of hormones. Exuberant. I would never do that now. Today I would be satisfied with slamming his head on the counter a couple times.

So I sit next to Steve and put my arm around him, and I ask if the Bosco is to his liking. And of course, it is. I showed my boys the right way to mix it. None of that business with the dark smear around the bottom of the glass, with spoon marks in it. The key to a good Bosco is thoroughness. The KEY, amigo.

I have a rule. If I see streaks of undissolved syrup in my Bosco, I got to snap somebody’s pinky toe. I don’t care whose. Finding the culpable toe is not my department. They can draw straws if they want. But somebody’s toe is going to snap. When they hear that snapping sound, it really drives the message home. Call it a mnemonic device. Snap two or three pinky toes at one shot, and you’ll be drinking well-mixed Bosco for a good five years before you have to snap another one.

“Steve,” I said, “it’s not that I don’t like your work. Truly, I am nothing if not a patron of the arts. Especially my first true love, which is the dance. I think you know my history.” And I got up and gave him my best Bill “Bojangles” Robinson. Lovely man, Bojangles. Got that monicker because he ate a lot of fried chicken. I prefer Popeye’s. But let’s not reopen that can of Pandora’s worms.

That’s the kind of thing I wrote. I’m thrilled with it. This is what I wanted to publish, back when I was only able to sell the Nigerian spam book and the caveman book. I wrote those books because I had to. I wrote this one because I wanted to.

If you bought the self-published version of this book, I thank you, but I have to tell you, you still need the big-time version. It’s longer. It has more recipes. The recipes are better. And the writing is better. The first version doesn’t compare.

I hope you’ll give it a try. I believe in this book more than I believed in anything I put on bookstore shelves in the past.

Just for reference purposes, I’ll close with a list of the chapters.

Chapter 1 – Ribs
Chapter 2 – How to Smoke Your [Boston] Butt
Chapter 3 – BBQ Beans, Texas Toast, & the Inevitable Blazing Saddles Reference
Chapter 4 – Breakfast as a Mind-Altering Drug
Chapter 5 – Chicken-Fried Rib Eye on a Huge Biscuit
Chapter 6 – Grease Burgers
Chapter 7 – Cornbread and Navy Beans
Chapter 8 – Turducken: Flight of the Hindenbird
Chapter 9 – Aged Prime Steak Cooked on a Propane Griddle
Chapter 10 – Champagne Chicken With Fettuccine in Cream Sauce
Chapter 11 – Smoked Pork and Andouille Jambalaya
Chapter 12 – Pizzeria-Style Baked Ziti With Sausage
Chapter 13 – Stuffed Hog With Apricot Glaze
Chapter 14 – Unauthentic White Anglo-Saxon Protestant Chili
Chapter 15 – Super-Giant Fried Patacon Tacos
Chapter 16 – Deep-Fried Chinese-Style Honey-Garlic Chicken
Chapter 17 – Rotis and Jamaican-Style Goat Curry
Chapter 18 – Doro Wat – Ethiopian Chicken Stew
Chapter 19 – Hash Brown Casserole with Cheddar and Sour Cream
Chapter 20 – Dreadfully Fattening Macaroni and Cheese
Chapter 21 – Twice-Fried Fries Cooked in Beef Fat
Chapter 22 – Perfect 10-Minute Street Pizza
Chapter 23 – Peach Cobbler
Chapter 24 – Yeast-Raised Fried Doughnuts With Coconut/Banana Sauce
Chapter 25 – Coconut Flan
Chapter 26 – 540-Calorie Brownies
Chapter 27 – Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Hot Fudge Dessert/PMS Remedy
Chapter 28 – Blueberry Butter Cheesecake
Chapter 29 – Baklava With Cheesecake Filling
Chapter 30 – Red Lager and Room-Temperature Brewed Ale
Chapter 31 – Five Greasy Pieces: Quick Recipes for the Hopeless

Bon appetit.

You Need Many Copies

I bought a new low-profile jack because my old one won’t fit under the car. I came home from Northern Tool, looked at my comments, and saw two people suggesting I put something under the tires to raise the car. Now I feel like a complete moron. But I can take that jack back.

In other news, THE COOKBOOK IS OFFICIALLY SHIPPING. So if you’ve been putting off buying it, the wait is over. I hope you enjoy it. It’s a thousand times better than the first one.

Back Off, Mortals

I’m still having emotional aftershocks from the prime rib. I just realized: I am now capable of cooking the finest meal in the universe. Prime rib, the perfect baked potato, homebrewed ale, and BLUEBERRY CHEESECAKE. Four-thousand-dollar prostitutes have nothing on me. The pleasure I can create puts their sorry efforts in the shade. This qualifies me for superhero status. No human should have powers like these.

Blueberries are in season right now. So cheap. So close.

NO.

Someone stop me.

Mastered

Yes, I have mastered prime rib. Is it wrong to brag? Well, not really. When you consider how easy it is to cook a perfect rib roast. It’s like bragging that you mastered falling down. Which I am also good at.

You have to try this. You won’t believe how easy it is. Get a rib roast. The one I cooked was choice, and it was so good, I don’t know if I’d bother buying prime in the future. Dry-age it for as long as you dare. Then roast it in foil or a bag (on a broiling pan) at 250 until it gets to a point ten degrees below your desired internal temperature. At that point, jack the heat up to 500, remove the bag or foil, and cook until the roast hits the final destination. I went to about 133 today, but 125 might be better. One thing I learned from this experience: even if you use the “bake” setting, cooking at 550 may cause your broiler to turn on. On my oven, it happens at 550 but not 500, I think. I started with 550 and turned it down, and I tossed a piece of foil on top of the roast to keep it from charring.

You might want a second pan under the broiler pan, one rack down, to keep the bottom of the broiler pan from getting so hot the drippings burn. I had a pizza stone on the bottom rack.

The one thing I need to fool with is the salt. This time, I applied it one day before roasting, and it was very good, but it didn’t penetrate quite as well as I wanted. I think next time I’ll apply it three days before cooking. Don’t give me a lot of whining about drying the meat out. Three days won’t have a significant effect. One day had no effect at all.

This roast was extremely tender, and juice poured out of it. I could drink that stuff. I really could. The combination of wet aging and dry aging worked fine. The meat smelled a little rank before I cooked it, and it was perfect when it was done.

I can’t believe I got to be this old without knowing how easy prime rib was.

I think the salt-crusting tradition is probably incredibly stupid and counterproductive. But that’s up to you. I’m telling you how to get a tender and juicy roast that is perfectly browned. It should work regardless of how you season it.

I did not “rest” the roast. At least not on purpose. It was out of the oven for a few minutes before I could carve it; that’s inevitable. It was magnificent. Would resting have improved it? I take no position. For steak, it’s a stupid idea. But I haven’t experimented with bigger pieces of meat.

I still have two pounds of roast. I feel like taking off my shirt, climbing onto the table, and resting my bare belly on it.

The main side dish was a guilty pleasure. Microwaved red potatoes with butter and garlic. The microwave burns them a little and makes them slightly rubbery, which I actually like.

Your assignment is to pick up a rib roast the next time it’s on sale and try my method. It is guaranteed to work. Not “guaranteed” in the sense that I will in any way take responsibility if you fail. Just guaranteed in that I think you’ll have success. Which isn’t really a guarantee at all. Shut up. Just do it.

More

Would 225 be even better? Hmm…

Prime Rib Rematch

Who’s the better cook? Me or Bobby Flay? Let’s find out.

A while back, I got a rib roast, aged it for a week, and cooked it using instructions from the Food Network site. The site credited Bobby Flay. I didn’t use his seasoning ideas, but I did use the temperature he suggested, which was 350 degrees. And the roast was tougher than it should have been. That temperature sounded fishy to me, but this was my first rib roast, and I figured surely a professional chef knew how to cook roast beef. I should have known better. Professional cooks give bad advice day in and day out.

I just put a new roast in the oven. I salted it well, but not to the “crusting” point. I tried that before, and it was disgusting. This time, I salted it the day before and let the salt soak in overnight. Before I threw it in the oven, I smeared it with pressed garlic. I’m cooking it at 250, with a probe. I intended to cook it in a plastic bag, but I forgot to buy them, so I wrapped it in foil. When I get close to the target temperature of 135, I’ll remove the foil and raise the heat to 450 to get some browning. Hell, let’s make it 550. Git ‘r done.

If it was just me, I’d stop roasting at 120, but my old man will be partaking, so I have to compromise.

Mike says the Showtime Oven is the way to go. I called him before the last prime rib, figuring he would have better advice than any TV chef, but he couldn’t remember exactly what he did when he used the Showtime Oven. Since then he claims he has remembered. Cagey guy, that Mike.

I aged this one for several days, but only one day of that was dry-aging. I forgot about it during the septic tank debacle, so I inadvertently left it in the wrapper for a while.

Place your bets. Delicious, tender, juicy roast, or another disappointment? Call me cocky, but I think I can’t miss.

How could anyone who cooks for a living think 350 was a good cooking temperature for a roast?

Guess I Need a Bullwhip

I have a startling piece of news. Publisher’s Weekly gave my cookbook a review which was predictably obtuse yet more or less fair. This is a far cry from the dishonest review they gave the spam book. My guess? Someone over there has finally gotten some badly-needed fiber.

Rather than quote, I’ll print the entire review and let them threaten to sue me. Which is not too likely. They’ll probably be thrilled that someone has heard of Publisher’s Weekly and is willing to mention it.

Nostalgic for a time when kitchen counters had a container marked “grease” right next to “flour” and “sugar,” author and blogger Graham (Keep Chewing Till It Stops Kicking) offers up a rambling, tongue-in-cheek, plaque-in-artery collection of recipes and essays for those dedicated to the “Art of Lard.” Graham delights in slaughtering sacred cows with his acerbic, at times wildly inappropriate humor, but also gets a terrific amount of glee from simple bacon grease, a key ingredient in ribs, chicken fried steak, hash browns and even popcorn. Predictably dense takes on macaroni and cheese, burgers and fries dominate, though more exotic fare like Turducken and Rotis with Goat Curry are also detailed. Graham’s glib instructions can frustrate; for fatty (but incredibly flavorful) twice-baked fries, “you get your fat, and you put it in a big pot, and you put it in the oven at 250 for like a day. Then you throw out the lumps that remain,” before you add potatoes for frying. Most of his dishes, however, fall within the capabilities of kitchen novices, and he peppers sound advice throughout on everything from the proper use of ham hocks to the care of cast iron skillets. Unfortunately, his wildly uneven tone and pointless digressions kill any sense of momentum, making this a comedic smorgasbord best consumed in moderation.

Let’s see. “Wildly inappropriate humor.” Here is a question for liberals everywhere. And I warn liberals in advance: there is no answer that will not make you look stupid. Liberals always tell us that in the arts, anything goes. A Christ figurine soaking in urine is art. A photo of a man with a bullwhip in his rectum is art. And we are told that any criticism of art based on good taste is simply wrong. Okay. Humor is an art. That is beyond dispute. So why do liberals constantly tell us the things humorists and comedians joke about are “inappropriate”?

The only correct response is “hypocrisy.”

I wonder what they would have thought of the original version of the book, which I bowdlerized heavily for the big-time-publisher edition. It was mean to parody Hunter Thompson so soon after his death. Is that what they’re moaning about? I wanted to take that chapter out, but I made the decision too late. In any event, it’s nothing like as tasteless as Thompson’s own work. I wonder if they would refer to his humor as “wildly inappropriate.” Doubtful, since so much of it was directed at traditional liberal targets like decency, sobriety, chastity, and civility.

As for their complaint that the instructions for rendering fat are too hard to follow, my only response is “say what?” You put fat in a pot. You bake it at 250 degrees. You throw out the solids after the fat melts. What part of this is confusing? Seriously, readers of this blog, tell me where the difficulty is.

The truth is, there are some places in the book where the instructions are not really adequate. But this isn’t one of them. So why mention it in a review?

“Pointless digressions,” they say. Is absolutely everyone in publishing completely dense? The first time I showed this book to an agent, she said it would be great if only I removed the “off-topic banter.” Hello? The off-topic banter is the whole point of the book. If anything, it’s the recipes that are superfluous.

Whenever I remember the “off-topic banter” comment, I mention something it brings to mind, i.e., the Arab theater owner who showed The Sound of Music and, feeling it ran too long, edited out the songs. Without the songs, it’s just a B movie about a flat-chested babysitter who falls in love with her boss.

For a long time now, I have worried that a big percentage of the human race is simply too dumb to understand my writing. And reviews like this only reinforce my anxiety. I almost wish I could be like Dan Brown, who is–sorry to be blunt–fairly dumb. He’s dumb, therefore he has no problems writing for the dumb. It’s easy for him to figure out what the dumb will like, but for a bright person, it’s very hard. It’s like trying to guess which bad smell a dog would most like to roll in.

I don’t even understand the “momentum” comment. Why would momentum be desirable in a book of essays? The whole point of a book of essays is to present different topics one at a time. You may have noticed that I didn’t call it “The Story of Eat What You Want and Die Like a Man.” That’s because it’s not a story. The chapters are unrelated. Does The Joy of Cooking have momentum? I’ll have to check. It’s a really bad cookbook; maybe the momentum makes up for it.

Seriously, if you’re thinking of buying The Joy of Cooking, don’t. I mean, okay, do, but understand that you will have to correct a lot of the recipes. Their brownie recipe actually produces chocolate cake. If you’re a good cook, you can use The Joy of Cooking to get a general idea of how certain dishes work, but unless your experience is a lot different from mine, following their recipes to the letter will give you pretty lousy food.

Where is this reviewer’s brain? I parodied what, maybe ten writers and celebrities? How many humorists can do that? I did Al Franken, Bill O’Reilly, Christopher Walken, Frank McCourt…even William S. Burroughs. They didn’t even notice. You know what? Dave Barry can’t do that. P.J. O’Rourke can’t do it. Almost nobody can do it. Couldn’t they have said, “Wow, he’s a fat Republican with guns, but he sure knows his parody”?

You want to know the difference between the devil and a Republican in the arts? People give the devil his due.

I guess it doesn’t sound like I’m thrilled with the review, but compared to the last one, it’s a gem. They almost admitted I’m funny. Coming from people with no sense of humor whatsoever, that’s a real gift.

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.