NEVER Pick my Mangoes

I found out something surprising today.

I got myself a machete at Home Depot a while back. It’s Chinese. Looks okay, but the blade is dull, and the edge has corners on it, and they obstruct the blade when it goes into stuff. I also got a hand sharpener; one of those things you pull blades through. I figured it was very unlikely to work on a big machete, but I knew it would work on other garden items, so what the hell.

It seems to have some effect on the machete, but on the whole, it’s lame. So I started looking around the web for a better answer. The ideal answer, clearly, is to build the belt grinder I wrote about a year or two ago. It would only cost several hundred dollars, and think how sharp my Home Depot machete would be.

I didn’t come to a conclusion about the sharpening, but I learned something wonderful. Gerber and Cold Steel both make machetes and sheaths. And they’re very, very cheap (around ten bucks). So, being the incorrigible Internet shopper that I am, I got one of each. Now I will have three machetes. Overkill, perhaps, but I fail to see how that is relevant to anything.

I have a Forschner scimitar knife which is only slightly shorter than a machete. It’s for slicing big things like pigs. It has occurred to me (since I sat down to write this) that a quality machete is probably a better deal. They cost half as much, and they’re even more impressive to dinner guests.

Cold Steel makes like five million different types of machete, so I went with the bolo shape. It’s wider toward the tip, to add angular momentum when you swing it. That should be fun. The Gerber has saw teeth on the back.

These things are really dangerous to use. If you swing down and miss, off come your toes. If you swing higher, the machete goes into your shin. If you swing sideways and miss, it goes into your left hand. Something to think about.

In my experience, they’re not that useful. They’re good for cutting sod, and you can use them to clear away green plants, but anything woody is likely to be a problem for a machete. So the intelligent thing seems to be to avoid using a machete until you’re sure nothing else will do.

The self-defense possibilities are obvious. Get one of these things sharp, and you’re probably better armed than an average gun owner, who would be lucky to shoot the earth successfully with three tries.

I guess I’ll get out the grinder and see what I can do with the machete I already have. If I can get the blade to make contact with the stone.

“Banana” has to be Code for SOMETHING

I hope everyone is having as good a day as I am. I’m a fat, healthy American with a roof over my head, good food, good clothing, tons of tools, and a blog. How can life get any better than that?

I am having a hard time concentrating, because a conversation is going on.

Marv: Can I rub your snout?

Me: No.

Marv: What do you think of that?

Me: I don’t know…I think it’s a travesty.

I am cheerful in spite of the hideous weather. Once again, the sky is the color of dirty gym socks. It was like this all day yesterday, but it refused to rain. Today the chance of precipitation is 90%, but I haven’t seen any action yet. Oh, wait. The forecast has changed. Now the figure is 80%. We’re saved.

I attribute my frame of mind to my spiritual improvements. One nice thing about Christianity is that it relieves a lot of your anxiety. For example, I am not eating my liver over the possibility that we may elect Barack Obama President. I trust God to protect me when the country falls apart and goes communist. Maybe there is a reason I’ve been buying guns and learning how to grow food!

It’s good that the election is not driving me crazy, because it will keep me out of trouble. As we all know, all criticism (and even some types of praise) directed at Obama is vile and racist. So the less the race (AHA! “RACE!”) disturbs me, the less likely I am to write about it and expose my horrific bigotry.

Last night I learned that “socialist” is a “code word” for “black.” I had no idea. I thought it was a code word for “Democrat.” And there’s more. It turns out “Ayers” means “watermelon,” and “McCain” is actually secret code for the mighty N-word itself. So now the networks will have to quit running McCain ads, especially if they refer to terrorist nutcase Bill Ayers.

I think the Democrats should have gone even further, in squashing debate. They should have told us “Obama” was a black word. You know. “That’s our word. You can’t say that word.” Then conservative and moderate commentators would have had to sit out the whole campaign. And we could call this the Blackness Doctrine. Or something.

When I think of socialists, I don’t think of black people. I think of spoiled white people who hate their parents and want other people’s money. I’m fairly sure the “code word” thing was invented this month. Correct me if I’m wrong.

I guess I can’t fix the soffit today. That is tragic.

I checked the yard this morning. I have this peculiar feeling that it’s a good thing to walk around your property early every day. It looks like my newest banana tree is doing great. I can’t figure that out. It was a pup at the base of one of my Orinocos. I hacked it off with a shovel, and when I was done, it had no roots. I jammed it in a place formerly occupied by a papaya tree, and I kept the ground wet, and that was days ago, and it looks great. One day my bananas and plantains will start coming in again, and I’ll have to harvest them with a bulldozer.

I think I may give up on my fatalii pepper plant. It looks awful, and the peppers aren’t worth the effort. They’re about like white habaneros, which means they are incredibly hot and have a flavor reminiscent of the smell of sulfuric acid.

Everything else either looks good or appears to be improving.

Maybe I’ll put in a couple more citrus trees. You can’t have too many eating oranges or Key limes.

Nailing

I got myself a bunch of 8-foot tongue-and-groove boards, to fix the giant hole the bee remover left in the soffit. I’m not too optimistic. The board sample I took to the lumber store is nearly an eighth of an inch thicker than the ones I bought, but it looks like I have no choice. I went with pressure-treated; I’m not completely stupid.

I’m wondering how to attach the boards to the house. Nails, I know. But does this mean I need a nail gun?

I suppose it does. I would probably kill myself, up there under the eave, trying to hammer nails upward.

You know what this means. I get to use the compressor! The little tiny Eaton compressor? NO! The huge, belching, 220-volt Curtis compressor! Because the little one won’t drive a nailer? NO! Because the big one is more FUN.

Jobs like this are the reason I bought a hundred feet of hose, right off the bat. All I have to do is reel it out.

WOW, I just checked, and pneumatic nailers are EXPENSIVE! I think I’ll rent. They run about $250, and I’ll never use it again.

I think it may be time to look at a Sawzall. The bee people cut sections out of a whole bunch of 8-foot boards. Now every board they cut has to be replaced. That means prying and sawing to get the damned things off the house.

Pinch Me

Since I have been writing about eschatology, let me point something out. There is proof that the end of the world is nigh. I am referring to the fact that Budweiser has managed to produce a pretty decent beer.

I spent a few hours at Mancamp on Sunday, and Val offered me a Bud American Ale. I dreaded the first swig. I am familiar with ridiculous products like Killian’s, which look like beer but taste like Budmilcoors. I figured this would be the same basic deal.

I was wrong! It’s very bitter, and they used barley instead of corn and rice and cardboard. It will never be a favorite, because they bungled the hops, but still, what progress.

I barely drink anything any more, but if I felt inclined to drink a beer, and one of these were available, I wouldn’t be ashamed to take it. I could never say that about swill like Michelob and Bud Select.

Call CNN

When I started getting along with my sister, I knew there would be an early attack, to try to break it up. The enemy is an abortionist; he kills things as young as possible. Hence the slaughter in Bethlehem in Herod’s time.

Yesterday she called, and we talked about family business, and she said something very disturbing. I tried to discuss it with her rationally, and I did an okay job, but it was obvious that I was angry. And she was angrier than I was.

I prayed about it and thought about it. She called later, and before she could say anything, I told her I was sorry I had gotten angry, and I expressed a willingness to consider her position and make a compromise. In a few minutes, peace had returned. I didn’t require her to meet me halfway; I think that the farther along you are in your walk, the more you have to be willing to make allowances. You don’t plant an acorn and then try to hang a swing on it the next day. Today things are fine. I’m glad I saw this problem coming, so I had some idea how to deal with it. I knew how to get help from God, and he got things working again.

Today I feel like I won an Olympic medal; I got up at 6 a.m. That’s half an hour better than my previous efforts. And when I got up, I felt good. All my life, I have felt miserable in the morning, and I’ve had a very hard time forcing myself out of bed, especially when I had no pressing obligations that required me to rise. These days, when I go to bed, I look forward to getting up. I can’t tell you how weird that is. When the alarm goes off, there are things I want to get up and do. I want to start getting up at 5:30, but I don’t know if that’s practical, because it would mean bed at 9 p.m.

I took care of Communion and prayer, and then I went out to check the plants. It was still almost dark. I decided to get rid of my sugar apple tree. It was a gift; the guy who planted it is an Indian. He said it came from the grounds of some temple or other in South America. At the time, I didn’t think it would matter.

The tree never grew. In fact, I could swear it actually got smaller. I tried to fix it, and I managed to make it healthy and green, but it never amounted to anything. Today I thought about that, and I thought about the temple connection, and I thought about the problems my other trees and plants have had, and I dug the sugar apple up and dumped it in the trash heap. I’ll find something better to put in its spot. Something with no heathen connection.

I spent some time watching a video today. Perry Stone. It was about the Antichrist. As I have said before, I am no eschatology buff, but this is what I had on hand. Interesting stuff.

He believes the Antichrist is the person the Muslims call the 12th Mahdi or 12th Imam. He says they believe this person will emerge from one of two towns in Iraq, and that a couple of well-known mosque blasts were efforts to prevent him from coming. The Shias think he’ll come from one place, and the Sunnis believe he’ll come from another, so each side blew up the other side’s chosen place.

Furthermore, he says the Muslims believe our presence in Iraq is delaying things. And here we are, with B. Hussein Obama threatening to take charge and bring our troops home. Stone didn’t mention Obama. The video was made before Obama rose to prominence. But I couldn’t help thinking about him.

He also says Osama bin Laden considers himself the 12th Mahdi, and that many Muslims agree, and that Muqtada al-Sadr is preparing his militia for the Mahdi’s return.

Stone said Iran’s Ahmadinejad believes in this stuff, and that he is preparing railroads and hotels and so on for the crowds that will show up when the Mahdi comes back. I can’t remember the Iran connection; I don’t know why you would prepare Iran for an event in Iraq.

I had never heard any of this before. I don’t know what to make of it. I can’t say whether he’s wrong or right. Prophecy teachers always jump the gun. After all the things they’ve predicted, the world is still here. In a video, Stone makes fun of himself for telling people (in 1981) that Anwar Sadat was a prominent eschatological figure (Sadat was assassinated two weeks later). But it’s clear that the Middle East is the most important place on earth, and that the reason is that it is a battleground of spirits, not men. It will always be the focal point of earthly existence.

He has a video on the Rapture. This isn’t something I worry a lot about. If I die and go to heaven, or if I’m taken up while I’m alive, things will work out. I worry more about how I live here on earth. Whatever may happen after I die, Christian life is wonderful right now, and I want it for myself and the people I care about. I haven’t really concerned myself about the nature of the Rapture, or even about its existence, which many people doubt. Nonetheless, I was interested in what he had to say.

I had always assumed that all Christians received their reward pretty much at the times of their deaths. But he says that if you lead an unproductive, backward life, you may be shut out when the Rapture comes, and you may have to stay here and suffer–badly–for a while. Imagine living in a world where no one knows God, and no one prays. Evil with no brakes.

I don’t know the answer, but I do know we’re supposed to lead Godly lives. And I know we are rewarded for it, not just in heaven, but here.

Tomorrow I will be up at 6, to see what else I can do to improve my life.

More Stuff we All Need

You know what I really REALLY want? Other than a pickup?

1. A floor drill press.

2. A Saiga 12 shotgun.

I’m just about positive we are going to see the price of tools drop considerably, because commodities are getting cheap and the dollar is getting strong. So I am hoping I’ll be able to get a good deal on a drill press. And I am convinced that a Saiga 12 shotgun with a laser and extended magazines is just about the best security weapon you can get for under a thousand dollars.

What is a Saiga 12? It’s an AK-47 that shoots 12-gauge rounds. And you can get ten-round clips, which negates the big weakness of security shotguns, which is capacity. So hopefully, you get AK reliability, autoloader speed, 12-gauge stopping power, and rifle capacity.

These guns are supposed to be super-reliable, and they cycle fast, and you can have one for a little over five hundred bucks. And I’m pretty sure no rifle or pistol can compare, in terms of effectiveness. Being hit with one dose of buckshot is like being shot by several .30-caliber weapons at once.

I considered a Saiga .410. Supposedly, .410 loads are highly effective, and you get less recoil and muzzle rise and so on. But gun nuts seem convinced that 12 gauge is the way to go.

Right now, I depend on pistols to protect myself. And pistols are swell. They work great at household distances, and they’re easy to carry and maneuver. But it’s easy to miss with a pistol. If you’re within a hundred feet, I can pretty much count on hitting you at will with a long gun, even if you’re moving and I shoot from the hip. At least, I have found that to be true in the past. I guess you wouldn’t want to shoot from the hip if you could avoid it, because of recoil problems, but it illustrates the difference between pistols and long guns. It’s also harder to shoot yourself with a long gun.

Last time I went to the range, I looked at the nearly-new lumber they had put in the ground by the targets. It was the same stuff they use to make railroad ties. There were long pieces of it running across the range in front of the target bases. Mike and I were amazed to see that the wood already had bullet tracks in it. Seven yards from the firing line! There are people who go to the gun range and aim at the targets from seven yards and hit the ground! Bet that doesn’t happen much with long guns.

I think you can also put bayonets on these things. Not sure. Imagine explaining that to the cops, when they arrive to scoop up a criminal’s remains.

I saw a nice Delta bench drill press yesterday at Lowe’s. I felt like hugging it. I keep thinking of all the miserable jobs I’ve had to do, that would have been simple with a drill press. Maybe I’ll get my wish, and Steel City prices will slide back to ’07 levels.

I’m Burnin’ Daylight

This is horrendous. A disaster. This morning I didn’t wake up until 7:20!

I exaggerate for effect. How unusual.

I have been getting up at 6:30 to start the day off right with Communion and prayer and so on. It’s fantastic. I actually look forward to getting up, which is beyond weird. I do my religious stuff, and I go out and tend the plants, and I get the birds ready for their day, and by the time the world is functioning, I already have a good day going. I’m hoping I can eventually find it in myself to move it to 6:00 or 5:30, although I would have to go to bed no later than 9 p.m. in order for 5:30 to work. Waking up 50 minutes late was highly disturbing. I felt like a degenerate.

A month or two ago, I always shot for 7:30, but it seemed like I always ran into a situation that kept me up late or interrupted my sleep, so generally, I was managing 8:00 or 8:30, and it wasn’t unusual to wake up at 9:30. I am not having these problems any more.

The writer Georges Simenon filled shelves with popular books. When he was asked how he managed to write so much, he said he worked from 5:30 to 8:30 every morning, and that was about it. I don’t know if he was serious, but Stephen King, who is also prolific, says he writes for four hours a day. There is something about the early hours that makes them more productive. Maybe it’s the simple fact that other people aren’t awake to distract you and waste your time.

I use my TV as an alarm clock. Twice, it has let me down. I have no explanation. Both times, I checked the settings, and they were correct. I guess I’ll have to use a backup.

Here is odd news. My father visited Mancamp this weekend, sort of. We were actually next door, at Pat’s house. Pat has built a magnificent outdoor bar and grill. While my dad was there, he took a look at Pat’s new travel trailer. These things are going dirt cheap right now, so Pat got himself one. Dad was very taken with it, and now he feels he has to have one. Or a motorhome.

Guess who has been assigned the duty of helping him research?

I had a feeling my readers would know about stuff like this, so let me ask. I tend to think his best bet is a trailer and a pickup. The total cost is cheaper than an RV, and you don’t have to drag a crappy little car so you’ll have something to drive when your house is parked. You can take off in the pickup. Also, the pickup is useful in and of itself, when you’re not traveling. And it should be easier to repair than an RV. He has a choice between a regular trailer connection and a bigger one that requries a fifth wheel. Seems to me that the fifth wheel will ruin the pickup.

Anyone have any clues to share?

Also, what brands should he avoid? So far he believes Coachmen looks good.

He wants me to join him on trips from time to time. The obvious question: what do you do with two parrots in a situation like that? You can’t put them in a pickup, unless you want to eat all your meals in the truck while you’re driving. The alternative is leaving them in the hot pickup interior to die. You can’t keep them in the trailer with no air conditioning. And what would you do with them when the trailer was parked? You can’t sleep in a trailer with two parrots. Impossible. I you put them outside, they’d be in danger from predators, kooks, thieves, and exposure. And indoors, they would fling seeds everywhere. I guess they’d have to go to the bird hotel, which means short trips only.

The up side of all this, apart from the possibility of spending some quality time with my father, is that he may get a pickup, which would mean I could steal it when needed, instead of buying my own.

Not that I ever think that way.

Not This Time, Anyway

I survived plant-shopping with my sister. And I came home with a nice dragon fruit cactus. I have been wanting one of these. The fruit’s flesh is sort of like a kiwi. Most have white or magenta flesh, and the flavor varies depending on the variety.

The nice thing about these is that as they grow, you can break off pieces of them and plant them.

I carved a pup (new plant sprout) off one of my Orinoco banana trees the other day and planted it. I thought I had destroyed it, but two days later, it looks great. Figure once I have three of each variety going, I will be able to count on a fairly steady supply of bananas and plantains.

I am truly pooped. Must go beat Marv.

Be Awake Before Your Enemies Get Set Up

Life continues to improve here.

As mentioned in an earlier post, my sister told me about an evangelist named Perry Stone, and she said one of his teachings was that Communion was something that could, and should, be celebrated privately as well as publicly. I read his book, The Meal That Heals, and I heard my sister’s testimony about the transforming effects, so I decided to give it a shot. I have kept it up ever since. I have also started getting up at 6:30 to spend the first hour or ninety minutes of the day with God. I’ve tried to do that in the past, but until now, I found it impossible.

For some reason, evil things are most active at night. So it’s probably smart to get to bed early and to get up and start preparing your defense (and offense) while it is still dark. To undo whatever traps have been set for you.

I have been using grape juice. The thought of drinking wine in the morning is just too much for me. And from what I’ve read, I’m satisfied that grape juice will get the job done. I started out with Streit’s lightly salted matzos, but I have since switched to Manischewitz whole wheat. It’s probably more like the stuff they used 2,000 years ago, and it’s not a big dose of refined carbs.

I don’t use a tiny amount of these things; I pour a 12-ounce glass of juice, and I use a whole matzo. I would feel funny playing around with tiny slivers of matzo and a glass the size of a thimble. The first Communion was part of a meal; I figure I might as well do what people do at meals and consume normal amounts. One problem: I really like grape juice. I have to be careful not to drink it during the day, because then I won’t have it when I need it.

When I take Communion, I make a serious effort to search my heart for things that will invalidate the effort. I try to remember whether I’ve wronged anyone and whether there is anyone I haven’t forgiven. And I pray about those things.

When it’s over, I have time for study and prayer, and after that, I fix up the birds and go outside and look over my trees and plants. That right there is a great reward. Although the climate here is not quite like the climate in Israel, the foliage is very similar. Walking around in the dew with the citrus around me, I feel as though I have been transported back to the Jezreel. I remember hopping off the wagon after my ride to the grapefruit fields and finding my ladder and the three wooden boxes that had been placed there by IDF General Eli, who managed the grove when he wasn’t commanding tanks. I remember climbing out of the Jeep and stepping onto the rich brown dirt of the almond fields and waiting for Zev and Avshi and Kalman to tell me what we would be doing.

Fortunately, the yard doesn’t remind me of the day I spent working in the chicken house. Don’t get me started.

Because of the way my schedule has changed, the day seem longer, and I get more done, and when bedtime comes, I am ready to sleep. It’s just a better way to live. If it happens after ten p.m., odds are, you are better off missing out on it. Seems like that principle applies to a lot of things. If it’s on a pay channel, you are better off not watching it. If it’s network-TV entertainment, you are better off not seeing it.

Here’s a funny example. Now that I carry a gun all the time, I can’t go into bars. It’s the law. Hmm…isn’t that a win-win situation? Seriously, is there anything that happens in a bar that makes the visit worth the down side?

Life is changing. I am discarding the objects and practices that invite attack and corruption. It’s like debriding a wound and removing the dead, infected crud the bacteria use as a base. I didn’t realize it until this morning, but Communion is part of that. You can’t just do it. You have to prepare yourself and clean up your soul. Holding hatred and vengeance and other bad things in your heart is about like keeping a Ouija board in your closet.

It’s all about t’shuvah; turning back to God. That’s where the power comes from. Think of God as the sun and yourself as a solar panel.

According to the Talmud (says Aaron), Jewish tradition teaches that today (beginning last night) is the Yom Kippur of the Gentiles. Fine with me. Two days of atonement have to be better than one. One day for the olive tree, and another day for the grafted branches. Can’t complain about that.

This morning, I will be driving my sister to Fort Lauderdale, to some sort of a garden center. How about that? I couldn’t have predicted that two months ago.

I have to thank everyone who offered guidance. Of course, I have to thank all the readers who quietly kept me in their prayers. And above all, God.

Time for breakfast.

Not all Junk Mail is Junk

Today I looked over an annual report from one of my favorite charities, World Relief. Ordinarily I am tempted to throw this stuff out because I can’t imagine how the contents could be information I don’t already have, and I can’t see how it would change my mind about anything. But I felt I should take a look.

It’s remarkable. Two things struck me. First, the abject misery of many of the people they help. Second, the amazing things very small amounts of money are doing for these people.

As an example, let me point to their loan program in Burundi. They call the program Turame. The average first loan is $47, and subsequent loans range from $80 to $160. The report says 1% of these loans are considered at risk of default. Maybe they should be running Fannie Mae.

Loan recipients sometimes use the money to bulk up their small businesses, such as shops. One lady mentioned in the report added flour and soft drinks to her inventory, so now her earnings are up. And she supports five kids. That’s a great return on such a small investment. And it’s not even a donation; the money is going to come back to World Relief.

They have another program in Rwanda, where many of the men have been killed by genocide. World Relief has rounded up 200 widows, and they’re growing flowers for the essential-oil market. Being a widow is tough anywhere. In Rwanda, it must be a hellish existence. But these ladies are getting help.

In Mozambique, World Relief is improving irrigation and teaching people to grow things like papayas and mangoes. And they’re learning how to manage the soil so they have a future.

The report says 89% of their assistance goes to women. They cite several reasons. Women are more likely to be exploited in prostitution or human trafficking. Women have less access to banks and so on. But there’s another reason at which the report only hints. Many African families are fatherless. Fathers die in war and from AIDS, and there is also a serious problem with African fathers abandoning their families. It’s not PC to say it, but it’s true; Africans themselves complain about it.

Fathers are important. To people who say you can raise fine children without a father present, let me respond: you can also lead a long, fulfilling life with no legs. That doesn’t mean it’s how people should live. Some people grow up and prosper in spite of absent or inadequate fathers. On the other hand, many do very poorly.

Reading the stories and looking at the photos, you can see how little hope these people have when left to their own devices, and how much it means to them when someone shows up and enables them to help themselves.

The world is a peculiar place. One of the worst kinds of evil is to do someone else great harm in order to reap a small benefit. To pull an example out of thin air, think of a wealthy man who drives a family off of a small property in order to take the land and add a tiny percentage to his own income. On the other hand, sometimes you can do someone else a great deal of good by doing something that has a trivial cost to you. Forty-eight bucks? That’s dinner for two at Outback.

The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews is also doing great work. They put $2 million into the restoration of 32 bomb shelters in rocket-plagued Sderot. They’re flying Jews to Israel from all sorts of miserable places. They send workers to help poor Jews in the former USSR, including elderly Jews who are alone and live in utter squalor. They’re helping West Bank settlers who apparently have more faith in God’s promises than in their government’s hopes of appeasing Israel’s hostile neighbors.

I had no idea how big their budget was. They took in around $78 million last year! And almost all of it came from American Christians who were thrilled to donate. It’s too bad the IFCJ can’t attract more money from Jews. Even the Israeli government acknowledges the IFCJ’s gigantic impact. They’ve made Rabbi Eckstein (the IFCJ’s leader) their goodwill ambassador to evangelicals in Latin America, which has traditionally been a hotbed of anti-Semitism. Now Christians down there can hear him on the radio, and they are sending support.

Here’s something weird: Rabbi Eckstein has a bona fide ministry…to Christians! He puts out DVDs explaining Christianity’s Jewish roots. They’re very good. What a strange time we live in.

Socialism, with its oppression, totalitarianism, and hatred of God, comes to those who deserve it. These days, when I criticize the government for taking our money and using it to addict the undeserving poor to vote-buying handouts, I am careful to remember that unless private charity steps up to the plate, Americans will look very bad, complaining about entitlements. In the past I haven’t done what I should. I’m glad there are so many opportunities to correct that.

Griddle Beats the Broiler

Last night, I was spirited off to Ruth’s Chris for a free dinner. And I was scared. Why? Because I keep saying my steaks are better than theirs. What if my memory was wrong? Ack.

Today I am feeling smug, however, because I was right.

I had the cowboy ribeye (bone-in with the meat removed from the skinny end), a baked potato, a Caesar salad with anchovies, and a Chopin martini. I’ll give you my evaluation.

First off, the meat was more tender than my ribeyes. I think. It may have been that it was just juicier. I dry-age, and maybe Ruth’s doesn’t. Dry-aging reduces the water content somewhat. They may be wet-aging; women like it because you get a really wet steak. Regardless of what the deal was, the texture was a little bit like a big piece of Jell-O.

I wasn’t too excited by that. People who don’t know anything about beef think tenderness equals quality, but that’s wrong. A steak should be tender, but it shouldn’t be like eating tapioca. It shouldn’t jiggle. That’s a little off-putting. A steak should be juicy, too, but that doesn’t mean it should be so juicy that it tastes watery.

My rib eyes are very tender. They come apart with very little effort. And they’re juicy; a gorgeous red-brown fluid comes out of them, inviting you to dip bites of potato in it. But they still resemble meat. You can feel something in your mouth when you chew. In my opinion, that’s how steak is supposed to be.

The flavor of the Ruth’s steak was not what it should have been. They use some kind of strange seasoning; I can’t tell what it is. It’s all you can taste. The flavor of the beef doesn’t really come through. Furthermore, they serve the steak on a hot plate (very nice) surrounded by added butter (very nice) which burns (not nice at all) while they bring the steak to you. The flavor of burned butter is very strong, and it’s not pleasant. I’ve used tiny amounts of burned butter as a flavoring, but generally, you want to avoid letting butter brown too much.

The meat itself was low on flavor. I don’t know why. Maybe wet-aging is to blame. They failed to brown the beef properly; that would have helped. Steak should never be served grey. It should be dark brown, and it should not be brown here and there, but all over. Browning means flavor. Another thing: a cast-iron griddle or skillet used only for steak will develop a seasoning on it that flavors the meat in a way no gas broiler can imitate.

They also put way too much salt on the steak. I was dipping it in the burned butter, trying to rinse the salt off. And I salt my steaks very heavily at home.

I know I sound like I’m ripping their steak to shreds, but it was very good. Ruth’s is a wonderful restaurant. You have to understand, I’m comparing their steak to steaks that are so good I actually make moaning noises while I eat.

They served me a baked potato with butter, sour cream, and chives. I asked for butter, sour cream, and salt, but that’s not a big deal. I tried it. Guess what? Not nearly as good as my potatoes. Not even close.

For one thing, they soak the jackets with some kind of lube. Butter, I suppose. The jacket seemed very, very thin and delicate, and it was completely wet. On the inside, the potato itself seemed wet. I don’t know how they do that. Maybe they use a steamer. It wasn’t airy and light; it was heavy. My potatoes are sort of fluffy. Also, they chintzed on the toppings. If you’re not going to put at least six ounces of sour cream on a potato, don’t waste my time with it.

Another problem: they don’t burn the potato at all. My potatoes typically have a little bit of browning inside the jacket on one side. This is marvelous; it adds complexity, and it goes great with the sour cream and butter.

The butter Ruth’s uses doesn’t have garlic in it. Arggh. MISTAKE.

I didn’t finish the potato. It was very nice, but compared to my potatoes, it was sort of civilized and limp and bland. I admit, I was trying not to be a pig, and I didn’t want to finish it. But with one of my potatoes, I would have been helpless. Willpower would have wilted before it. It always has.

I like Ruth’s, and I would never turn down a Ruth’s meal. The food last night was great. But their dinners can’t compare to a home-aged steak cooked on a griddle, next to a baked potato cooked with no foil, with salt water applied to the jacket before baking. Ruth’s is not in the same class.

One more thing: my steak arrived at the table sizzling from the heat of the plate. Looks like the unfortunate “resting” fad hasn’t spread to every cook on the planet.

Try my recipe with confidence. If you like the flavor of beef, not burned butter or herbs, and you like your potatoes fluffy and light with dry, salted jackets that cry out for garlic butter, sour cream, and beef juice, you will not be disappointed.

I feel tremendous satisfaction, having succeeded in beating the pros. I worked a long time on this, and I’m thrilled at how it paid off.

More Shelves

I am installing more shelves in the garage, in the concrete. That means I get to use the rotary hammer and a 1/4″ SDS Plus bit.

I knew jobs like this were ahead when I decided to buy this thing. I wondered if it was worth it, lugging a 10-pound drill (a rotary hammer is a kind of drill) up a ladder over and over, to drill very small holes.

Boy, is it worth it. First of all, my cordless hammer drill, which is what I would have used but for the rotary hammer, is not that much lighter. Second, the hammer drill has no depth stop. Third, once the hammer action starts, it takes about five seconds for the rotary hammer to drill a hole 2″ deep in a concrete wall. Fourth, you don’t have to apply much pressure to a rotary hammer. You just hold it against the surface, and it does all the work.

With my hammer drill (which is a very nice Bosch), I had to lean on the handle for maybe a minute per hole. I also had to pull the bit out from time to time because it didn’t eject the dust very well. Forget all that; the hammer drill goes in, I pull it out, and I put it down and move on. And when you put up shelves, you have to drill a lot of holes.

This thing is a miracle tool, like the impact driver. I’ll bet a smaller model would be great for most people. I went with a Makita HR3000C because it seemed like a good step up from the Bosch, and it was big enough to do jobs other than drilling. And I found a ridiculous price. But most people would do great with something smaller, for a couple of hundred bucks. Get one of these plus a Panasonic 12-volt impact driver, and you will wonder how you lived without either. You’ll never need to touch your drill again. And many times you’ll be able to avoid using a screwdriver or socket wrench.

I’m enjoying myself a lot. Using tools is fun, IF your tools are adequate. Tools used:

1. Impact driver
2. Rotary hammer
3. Claw hammer
4. File
5. Dry cut saw
6. Level
7. Electric leaf blower

I have finally realized that if I’m going to use the blower to clean up swarf, I need to do my metal-cutting way out in the driveway and wear eye protection. Otherwise, half of the swarf goes back into the garage, and I have to keep my eyes closed.

I am not all that thrilled with Closetmaid shelving. I don’t even use the shelves. They’re wire, so things fall between the wires, and it’s hard to move things without picking them up off the shelves. And it’s hard to put anything heavy on them, so the advertised strength of the supporting stuff is wasted. I make my own shelves from wood. They’re smooth and strong. The Closetmaid hardware isn’t made to work with wood, so you have to improvise a fair amount. But it’s all sturdy, so it seems like the best choice, given what I can find.

Home Depot lumber is pretty bad; I suppose it’s like that at every store. Sometimes I have to go back several times, weeks apart, to get decent wood. And I still have to clamp it, glue it, and screw it when I put it together, to force it to do what I want.

I have a radio in the garage playing country music, and there’s a fan on the wall on a special shelf I built for it. It’s very pleasant out there. Sure beats watching TV.

Or Maybe Name Them

When I was working on the kibbutz back in the Eighties, I saw an interesting tree. I was working in the almond fields at the time. Almonds are close relatives of peaches, cherries, apricots, plums, and so on. Before you get an almond, you get a green fruit that looks like a plum. The fruit has almost no flesh; it dies and falls off, and then you have a pit, and inside the pit is the almond.

One day on the way home, the kibbutzniks made a stop. I and another volunteer were in the Jeep with them. We got out and approached a tree. It had peaches on one side, plums on another (I think), and apricots on another. The kibbutzniks started eating the apricots. They told us to have some, too. They called them “mish mish.”

Once Mish Weiss was done with the chemo and radiation that will prepare her for her bone marrow transplant, I felt it was appropriate to ask her a question in her comments. I.e.:

Does this mean you were named after a piece of fruit? If so, why?

Finally, why an apricot and not something more impressive, like a watermelon?

She has posted a reply on her blog.

Incidentally, Israelis are nuts about watermelon. I remember when the melons got ripe. All over the country, there were little trucks loaded to the top with round green melons, on their way to happy Israelis.

Yesterday Aaron told me that Jewish tradition holds that the Gentile Yom Kippur starts on Sunday night. I thought that was nice, in view of my recent good news.

Tired of Coffee Grounds Between my Toes

Help me out. What’s the best stick vacuum for wood floors? Has to be cordless, and has to be capable of sucking up the occasional dead 2″ roach. Should also be able to get into fairly tight spaces.

It Happens

It’s easy to get discouraged by problems that seem impervious to your most persistent efforts. Things like addiction and grudges and so on can appear impossible to fix. But that’s not true.

Here is more evidence.