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.

Wreath of Flubber

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

INGREDIENTS

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

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

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

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

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

No Timer, no Warm-Up

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Easy!

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

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

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

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

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