8:30am this bright Sunday morning found the Biggles with eyes open, yet still on the foggy side of awake. A moment later the throaty snarl of Black Bart making tracks away from Meathenge Labs at breakneck speed reminded me of my porky gift to be.
Yup, Chilebrown has struck again. Along with the Sunday paper, a pound and a half of slab bacon was resting gently. Moments later found our plucky hero with camera in hand and a 12″ cast iron pan on the warm.
Slice the bacon Biggles !!!
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Free Sea Salt – It’s right over there ya bone!
I happen to know Monkey Wrangler ain’t the first silly ass human to make their own sea salt. Cookiecrumb of I’m Mad and I Eat did this a while back.
I wasn’t able to taste her version, but if memory serves me correctly it had an ‘off’ taste to it and was tossed after a few months. Makes sense, while California can be an amazing wild place to be, we have our own collection of polution outlets.
Blah, blah, blah and mostly, blah. Well check this out. Monkey W went out with his daughter in a little kayak adventure in Tomales Bay and grabbed 5 gallons of sea water.
I don’t know about you, but navigating a kayak is one thing, especially with a 3 year old. But if you can bring back 5 gallons of sea water, too? And not kill anyone? You sir, or madame, are a badass.
Here are the fruits of his crazy labor.
This in no way shortens what Cookie did, she took it on. But as you may or may not know, Tomales Bay is home to some of the world’s best mollusks. If it’s good enough for them, then it’s good enough for us.
Cheers to you that are crazy enough to sally forth to the great unknown.
Biggles
Meathenge’s Cajun Chinch Stew
I’d never had Chinch meat, always heard about it. It wasn’t until my brother inlaw Meathead found some at a local market in the freezer section that we’d even consider it. It was decided to meet up this last Friday night and see what all the hubub is about.
Oh stop it, it’s just like squirrel or ‘possum. Let’s learn to love our furry little chinchilla for more than just the hide. Use it all, I say. Please come and join our adventure.
a late saturday night meal, what you gots? I have a pork stuffed with breakfast sausage.
Music: anything by Deep Purple
Meat: country style pork ribs seasoned cajun like stuff with fatted calf’s breakfast sausage
Heat: 300 degrees
Time: 6 hours
ETE: after that
Ah the joys of simple foods.
xo, Biggles
ps- Here we are 6 hours later and cooling. What’s next? Anything we want. Warm as is, fry in lard, install in to soups or stews. It’s juicy, tender and yet more than tasty. How do I know? I ate some. Get to it!
Book Review: The Food Lovers Guide to Florence 2nd edition
First things first. This book is published by Ten Speed Press, a local to the San Francisco Bay area. They’ve had a long history of top notch books ranging from this book here all the way to do-it-yourself bicycle repair. Their Anybody’s Bike book was a gift to me from my father back in about 1971. It was cause for celebration cause it was for my first 10 speed. Just so you know, that was a lot of gears back then. In fact, that was the most gears you could get.
So why am I here today with a food guide to Florence, Italy? After oh so many years, I’m on their food book review list! Why in hell is Meathenge having anything to do with traveling and food at such far away places? I’m on their food book review list.
Heh, heh. I’m totally going to open a book written by Emily Wise Miller.
When Meat Ascends
passionate love, tears.
Cook cook cook cook, cook. Cook, cooook cook cook.
Cook, cook coook cooooook cook cook, cook. Cook cook cook, cook cook, cook cook. Cook, and then? Seven years later? Egads man, you’re kitchen is a MESS !!!
An Italian Rice Torte, Meathenge goes vegetarian with the help of a Wrangler
Monkey Wrangler of Sourdough Monkey Wrangler posted about an old family recipe back on the 4th. Something about wanting to recreate a rice torte that his great-grandmother had done years ago. Yeah, I dunno, it didn’t stir anything in me so I passed.
It wasn’t until Cookiecrumb of I’m Mad and I Eat decided to do her own version that I thought maybe I should jump in. What do you think? I know it’s a vegetarian dish, but wouldn’t it be nice to teach an old dog new tricks?
Welcome Alvarado Gardens! – Richmond California
Over a month ago, maybe two now, Alvarado Gardens reopened. The new owners remodeled the aged place that once housed an old-mans bar and barbecue joint. My neighborhood doesn’t have a heck of a lot of excitement going on, so having the chance to eat at completely new restaurant is just too juicy to pass up.
Meathenge lends a helping hand with advice for parking meters and their wily ways.
Sunset over Richmond last Thursday. Jacked levels oh so slightly with a little more contrast, nothing more. Handheld with little Canon p&s, auto-setting. Can you see the little star up there?
Each Saturday I gather my meat sack, camera and some change for the meters in Berkeley. They’ve gone to 1.00 for an hour now, just so you know. Always careful to make sure I have my quarters to park, I’ve got a secret place.
Berkeley can’t possibly be unlike other largish cities in regards to those old parking meters. You know the ones. The ones that look healthy, then procede to take your quarters? Yup, thems be the ones. So of course I always bring a few extra quarters just in case, one never knows.
It was a warm October morning and the boys were with me. The older one watched as I slid in my first quarter only to ge a message on the damned thing, “Error.” Indeed and it cost me 25 cents to find out. I wish they had a button on ’em so we could test first.
“Okay boys, back in the truck! We need to pull forward to another meter so Papa can lose another damned quarter.”
“But Papa, why not just use a nickel instead? That way you only lose 5 cents.”
Well, ain’t that just an ice pick in the forehead. If I were you, take an 11 year old’s advice and use a nickel or dime first to see if that meter works or not.
Biggles
Meathenge goes shopping for ingredients. 6 grocery stores later …
Welp, had some time to myself and decided to jump in to the small frey. The Monkey Wranger and Cookiecrumb have been doing some vegetarian Italian Rice Tort action. It sounded easy enough and I figured if I was going to do it right I’d need to start with some of Fatted Calf’s Pancetta. So, off to the Berkeley Farmer’s Market first thing.
There were a few other things on my food list that I needed and this market didn’t have ’em. These would be milk, panko bread crumbs, rice and whatever else I was forgetting.
Okay so I had a list and I knew what I was up to. But I didn’t figure on the new Halal market next door to the El Salvadrian grocery to be open. It was, I went in.
Ya know, those Middle Eastern countries have an amazing gaggle of spices and herbs. One isle I had to go up and down 4 times just so I could inhale the goodness further. I saw a little package called Sausage Chili, filled with a red powder. I still have no idea what’s in it, mostly paprika smells like to me, but how could you not buy a powder called Sausage Chili? Down a ways spied me a package of Black Cumin seeds, snatch! I had goosemup pimples all over. Thinkin’ to myself, got to get me to these Middle Eastern recipes some day, soon.
This whole time I knew there was a meat counter behind me. I was carefully ignoring, sneaking past. Acting as though I was a vegetarian lost, I slid to far end and turned away, only to glance back as though I didn’t care. What I saw was a hospital clean meat display of some kind of fowl, turned out to be chicken. But what really caught my eye were two fresh 3′ legs of some kind of exceptionally clean red meat.
OH SHIT YEAH BABY !!! I know one of those is goat, just know it. I axed the smiling shop keeper about the legs. One was goat and one was lamb, I found the goat on my own. Her staff person asked how much of the leg I wanted. It took me a few gestures stating clearly I wanted the whole leg, silly.
Well, I’m not sure how my rice tort is coming along. 4 cups of milk and 1 cup of rice seems like an off ratio to me, but I’ve never made a rice tort before. So, what do I know? In any case, I have a leg of goat in the fridge I need to find something to do with over the next 24 hours. I thought about smoking it, but then got a rush for homemade curried goat over rice. After all, I do need to find a use for 10 pounds of Sona Masoori rice. Yup, I bought that too. Anyone know what that is, Sona Masoori? Looks like tiny grain rice.
Biggles
It’s (was) 84 degrees – An absolutely beautiful temperature to behold
To say I haven’t had time for Meathenge is like saying the Titanic was a pretty boat. And it’d be a lot easier if I didn’t sabotage myself along the way. Insert swearing here: “”
My PC at home was getting a little creaky and the operating system needed a boost. Gee, I had no idea Microsoft’s OS’s could be so buggy! Yeah, so Biggles removed the beast, and I do mean beast. It was a tower case that weighed in at over 30 pounds with no side panel. Off to the local computer chop shop we go! Yeah yeah, formatting and reinstalling windows ain’t rocket science, but I’m lazy. And remember, I have no time.
Minutes later we find Biggles in the Toy Store, ideas start to pop in to his red bearded hillbilly mind. (Minds have beards, hahhahahha) The idea was to move the guts to a new, small case and wipe the HD, install freshy fresh OS. “Hmm, well if we’re to wipe the HD, might as well install one of those new, fancy 10,000 rpm Raptor SATA drives, right? Right-o!”
Oh the visions of high speed data transfer coupled with a broadband connection just made him giddy.
It wasn’t until the following morning ol’ Biggles awoke with a start. What the hell had he done? Sure all the data was backed up, you bet. But do you have any idea of the time and effort it takes to put it all back? Tuck it in to all the right places? Reinstall dozens of little applications that make life nice? Let’s not even go in to the sheer volume of little serial numbers that need to be found. Akin to the archaeological dig at King Tut’s tomb, it is.
Know all those nifty little usb devices that make life so handy? Those little bastards have drivers that need to be loaded as well. Insert swearing here: “”
So, while it’s actually Thursday, this was supposed to be a cute little post about how nice the fricken weather was this last Sunday. Some rambling bull about trees blooming and green grass … greening. “Oh how bloody nice it is to be alive and view such splendor!”
I’ve changed the date to make it seem as though you missed a posting, cheeky me.
Insert swearing here: “”
Biggles
No Color, No Flavor. Man, I love browning meat!
Say it again with me, “Maaaan, I looove browning meat!”
It’s got everything in there I like. You get really heavy pans (if you don’t have to use 2 hands to set the fry pan on the stove, your equipment is too small), fresh meat, tons of searing heat and aromatic aromas. Browning meat has it all, right there.
Come have a short look at Tuesday’s little supper.
Shuna’s Baking Classes: March 11 & 25, 2007
Here we see an actual Pate A Choux doughnut from one of Shuna’s classes. And yes, I took it!
Hey you!
Yeah, you. The one on the fence, over there. Get down and come over here. The weather is brightening and the sun is shinier. It’s 2007 and it’s time to get back in the kitchen, you’ve had enough rest.
Quiddit, don’t give me that ol’ line. I don’t wanna hear it. Just because she’s holding these two classes, doesn’t mean they will always be there in the future. You need to contact Shuna directly over at her web site, Eggbeater. Looks like it only costs $100.00 bux. While that’s more than $55, you’re not going to be able to find a fancy pastry chef with Shuna’s credentials and skill set at another venue, nope!
Go now!
Biggles
Meathenge Defines: ambidextrous
ambidextrous : am·bi·dex·trous [am-bi-dek-struhs]
1. able to use both hands equally well: an ambidextrous axe handler
2. unusually skillful; facile: an ambidextrous home chef, able to successfully make a roux and brown off a pound of andouille.
3. double-hot-pan dealing; badass.
[Origin: 1640–50; ambidext(e)r + -ous]
—Related forms
am·bi·dex·trous·ly, adverb
am·bi·dex·trous·ness, noun