This and that...

It has been  relatively quiet week, though it was a very busy and for a short work week, it seemed like a long week.  Not entirely sure why it seemed so long, other than the usual feeling of not being able to catch up and being behind.  I think struggling with a bit of a cold and leaning on the Nyquil didn't help.  Yes, you sleep, but it's not a good sleep nor are you particularly perky the next morning.

I met an interesting couple yesterday--I sold press to a good home, and I really liked the person I sold it to and his partner.  They were good souls and were interesting.  He was a former printer, boat builder, canoe master who navigated the whole Mississippi and a hiker who walked a good chunk of the Appalachian Trail.  She was an advocate, a documentarian, and, of course in her favor, a photographer.  They got a good deal on the press but I got a better deal because of the delightful conversation and their kindness and humor.

What I liked about them is that they had their priorities in the right spot.  Both had the skills to be successful in several fields, but they were into the "follow your dream" mode of life. It was a reminder to me to focus on the right things, the things that really matter.  For example, I have been feeling pretty guilty about taking 10 days off in a few weeks.  Part of it is for a conference, but most of it is for an adventure of sorts.  I am going Florida for this conference but then I am staying there and driving around the state to try to be a backroads tourist.  Many of you have read William Least Heat Moon's classic book, Blue Highways.  My goals are to travel only the blue, small highways on the maps, to get lost, and to hopefully make it all the ways to the Florida Keys and back.

I explained this to someone recently.  I have no doubt that I would have a better retirement and more savings if I would not have traveled as much these past 15 years.  I kind of think of this as taking my retirement a few weeks at a time, a little bit on each trip/adventure.  I don't know if this trip to Florida will be the extreme adventure but it will be different.  I would title it my 2013 "Diners and Dives" tour.  It should be fun.  Maybe I will bring back a sea shell from the sea shore.

Today was a laid back day--good food, good music, decent wine and even some good company, even it was mostly myself.  The snow, wet, mushy snow that will no doubt be ice by tomorrow morning helped with the above photo.  I love these big huge trees, more so because of their shapes.  They have the shape of the trees that I draw, a ball on top with a stick/trunk below.  There was enough snow to mush out the photo and to make it almost look like a drawing.  It was much warmer today, bringing hope that the bitter cold of winter is ending.  I might even make it outside again for a photo or two before Florida.

An ode

Cold
Bitter cold
Penetrating lasting cold
Crunchy streets, slow starting
Lasting, trees cracking, nipping noses
Awful really terrible bone deep
Cold

Cold
Awful cold
Lasting, hanging on coughing sneezing and sniviling
Tissues needed and soon piled deep
Plugged up congested Nyquil high
Awful really terrible bone deep
Cold

On cold weather, comfort food, and moms

We in Central Minnesota are heading into the coldest stretch of weather in years this long weekend.  I know, cold is relative, but this is cold.  It is in the 'teens below zero, and will be perhaps 20 degrees or more below zero tonight.  Mind you, these temps are without the windchill--you can add (subtract?) another 10-15 degrees for that.

After a good start to Friday my day turned decidedly crappy and didn't exactly set me in the right mood for a long weekend.  It didn't really matter, becau se you still have to deal with it, right?  So I planned menus with the idea/goal of going shopping and not really emerging from my hovel til Tuesday AM when I have to go to work.  All in all not a bad plan.

For last night, I splurged and satisfied a craving that I have had.  I bought prime rib, an extravagance that I justified (of course) by saying that it would cost more in a fancy place and that even me, who doesn't like leftovers, can cage a few meals out of it.  I think that I wanted to learn how to cook it, too.  It is surprisingly simple, though I was nervous--what if I carbonized $50 worth of meat?  I would have felt badly.  But I didn't, and it was actually very good.  I learned a few things.  The cooking time is figured out from a room temperature roast, not a refrigerator-cold roast.  And, rosemary and salt make a good rub.  Then, in my recent infatuation with caramelized onions, I made a sauce with onions, bourbon (normally a yuk in my life) and a little sugar.  It was exceptional and made the rib prime.  I see visions of a prime rib sandwich on sourdough toast in my future...

Speaking of salt, I tried salt-roasted potatoes and they were a total fail  The theory is that you bake the potatoes in course salt but I apparently don't know how to do this.  After 90 minutes in the oven, they were still like rocks.  I guess that is what microwaves are for.

Along the line of comfort food, I made breakfast this morning.  Remembering back to my upbringing and youth  I made salmon patties, a meal that I don't think I have had for 20 or more years.  That and (gently) scrambled eggs and coffee made a good meal.  It also kept me inside on this cold day and was, well, comfortable.

All of this cooking and comfort made me think of my mom.  My mom was a good cook, and sometimes an exceptional cook.  Her biscuits, fried chicken, pies and a few other things are still the best that I have tasted.  But I think of the limitations that she faced and it is amazing she got food on the table.  My scrambled eggs today provide a good comparison.  I have learned how to cook light, fluffy scrambled eggs.  You use real cream, a hot pan to start and then  less heat.  Fresh herbs like dill and real recently shredded (not Velveeta) cheese all work to that end.  It takes some time, though, time that my mom probably never had when she was making scrambled eggs for six.

The roast last night was another comparison point.  First, I know that it alone cost more than any weekly food budget that she ever had.  Frankly, it would have been hard to make that piece of meat not taste good.  She also didn't like any meat that wasn't very well done.  I honestly did not know you could have a piece of beef that was not gray until I was in college.  The first steak I got that was slightly pink I almost sent back until I tasted it and finally understood why you don't cook a roast/steak until it was well done.

I think in some ways I am a better cook than my mom simply because I have more time and fewer demands on my time.  I cook when I want to, and for the adventure/fun of it.  She cooked every day--my dad made pancakes every now and then, but he didn't help with what had to be sometimes just a chore for her.  That she sometimes delivered this to an unappreciative audience probably didn't help that feeling.  Also, I rarely cook with or within a budget--my meals would be far different if I had make a budget stretch to fit the week.

I think the message that hit me this weekend and at other times as I cook is this. I am far removed from her cooking--it has been more than 20 years since she passed away, more than 30 years since I lived in her house.  The years, however, do not mean that I don't compare what I make to what she made all those years ago.  Is the meal better?  Worse?  Not as good?  Why?  I both honor and move away from what she was able to do in the kitchen

But that I do remember and still compare is important,  And it is a comfort.

Not much, how about you?

It feels weird to write a longer message than a text, but that has been how my week has gone.  Maybe it was appropriate because I haven't had much to say, nor do I now.

Dinner (for one, of course and alas) was good.  Sorry to my "vegi-vore" friends, but here was the menu.

Broiled lamb chops with a fresh, home made carmelized onion marmalade
Small Yukon Gold potatoes with fresh herbs and Irish butter
Grilled green beans with freshly squeezed olive oil, hand-harvested pine nuts and and sea salt from Nepal--or maybe they were just from a bag and there was no salt, 'cause it is bad for you.
A decent Cab with carmal, coffee and Himalayan huckleberry undertones, or maybe it was just a decent new Cab in a screw top bottle

Still, better than a #6 special and McDonalds, though I am more of a #5 kind of guy.

The pictures shouldn't exactly need a caption

I'm done cooking for tonight...

In case you haven't gathered, I do like cameras, especially ones that take film.  I even like the film, and have gathered some vintage unexposed film to try someday.  Well, I guess today was the day.  I was spurred on to do this by the possibility of a very small camera pictured above.  It is  Minox B, or more popularly known as a spy camera--my friend Sean used one of these when he was playing my character in one of those James (Jason) Bond films.  It was between beach volleyball gigs...

Whatever.  Believe me or not.  The camera is pretty cool.  It is 4 inches long  by 3/4 of an inch across  by 1/2 inch deep--it is small.  It focuses, it has all the shutter speeds, and it is a great example of Latvian ingenuity.  Really--it was designed and first built in Latvia.  Who know about those clever Latvians?  And it came with some film, though it's use by date was 1966, or 47 years ago.  But upon looking around, I found 35mm film from 1954, and 120 film from 1942, and thought, why not?  So I shot three rolls, one roll that produces negatives the size of your little finger fingernail and the larger film that made a negative 100 times bigger.  I carefully shot these three rolls all over town.  Once done, I "souped" them.  Of course I did this in my kitchen--I will have to make sure I wash those graduates before I fill my coffee pot, won't I?  Makes you wonder why am I single and why no one wants to eat here, doesn't it?

As fun as that was, the results were very disappointed.  Let it be a warning to anyone who tries to eat things after their "use by" date--things don't last, though that box of cereal that went out of date 6 days ago is probably still good.  For film though, it just doesn't work after 50 or more years.  Though these were remarkably packaged, the neat aluminum canisters didn't stop all the radiation (background, I hope) from fogging the film.   Geez, I hope this all wasn't some cruel metaphor for my life...  There were no images that were even remotely salvageable or useable.  And yes, it does make me realize that I have been exposed to even more background radiation, and that I didn't live in a cool aluminum canister--my brain must be toast.

No matter, as it was still a fun day.  I felt like a spy and an explorer/scientist which is never a bad combination  I will just have to try it all again with at least slightly newer film.

Dinner and all that...

My house has been cold all day, and thus (thusly?) I have been cold all day.  I knew I wanted to cook something, and wandered to the grocery store to wander around to try and find something for non-specific hunger.  It took a bit of time to put it all together, and I can't say I was all original, but I do believe I improved upon what was on offer.

I have been hankering for "a curry" as my friends across the pond would say so I knew that would be part of it.  But I haven't been impressed with the meat cooked in the curry of late, so I wanted to try something different.  I saw "Spicy Panko breaded chicken breasts" at the meat counter and thought about these as the protein source.  But I did think that I could improve upon their version.  Remember, around here, spicy is often using black pepper...

I did want to try theirs, so I bought two of theirs and two naked breasts (I never thought I would ever work that phrase into a blog post ) so I could try my version.  I marinated the plain ones in a very hot Thai chili sauce that I mellowed out with a little coconut milk.  I then dredged them in Panko crumbs that I had seasoned with a bit of curry powder and baked them for 45 minutes.  The rest of the meal was simple red curry with lots of vegetables with brown (!!!  I know, brown) rice.   It wasn't even instant.  And an absolutely awful bottle of Australian Riesling.  It was dreck, swill, terrible.  Those Australians do a lot of things well, like having cute fuzzy animals, poisonous things, and shrimp-wearing Barby's, but Riesling is not one of of the good things.  Yuk.  And it cost more than $3.99!  It was actually a $15 bottle of wine that I was saving for some vague, unknown/unfulfilled purpose--glad I wasted it now instead of inflicting this on anyone.

So, in the cook off, which was best?  Actually, the grocery store was not bad at all.  I was pleasantly surprised.  While not that spicy it had good flavor and was tender and moist.  Mine was hotter, perhaps a little  bit too hot, but the coating was better as it was crunchier.  The flavor was all the way through my offering because they were marinated, while in the store bought ones it was mostly in the coating.  I actually would do either again, but if I bought them I would add a bit more spice flavor.  If nothing else, this would be very good with big huge monstrous  shrimp.

I am still cooking--more about that later.

Why we do things like this...

I was reading the New York Times just now, and apparently they discovered an interview of W. Eugene Smith from about 1956.  Smith was without a doubt one of the best documentary photographers ever and was known to be rude, stubborn, dedicated, and insistent upon his vision.  He was talking about his Pittsburg project where he spent almost three years photographing the city, but because he produced so many photos, over 2000 negatives and more than 200 prints, it was too large and vast to publish.  At that time, literally only a handful saw this body of work by one of the greatest photographers.   The interviewer was Phillippe Halsman, himself no slouch, and it ended with this sequence:

Q.  What if nobody sees it? Besides a few friends?

A.

Answer this and you will see how artists have acted throughout the bloody ages. The goal is the work itself.

Early

For me it is early, at least on a Sunday.  I figure it like this--if I get up early, I can easily and certainly justify a nap later in the day.  Right???  Right.

I have done loads of laundry and put most of it away, mopped and vacuumed, and in general, been pretty productive.  Then I went out and took a picture or two on my way to coffee.  I am taking a break here for caffeine and the papers and so I can share a few photos from yesterday and from this morning.  I guess they are are OK--nature gave me a pretty significant assist on these.  All I had to do was be the idiot who pointed the camera or the phone.

More later