Turn to Shepard Smith for the really important stuff

This really got me laughing this morning. I'm watching CNBC around 730am CT and on comes Shepard Smith touting his big news show later in the day, one that of course, you should not miss. 

CNBC claims that "The News with Shepard Smith is CNBC’s nightly newscast providing deep, non-partisan coverage and perspective on the day’s most important stories." 

Hmmm. So what are today's most important stories, according to SS? 1) The cause of Tiger Woods' February 23rd car accident 2) The nationwide shortage of ketchup packets. 

Not so sure I'm agreeing with your perspective on April 7th 2021, Mr. Shepard. 

You can smoke frozen pork ribs

I'm sure the title of this post is heresy to smoking purists.

The problem with smoking meat, is every article or book you read goes through this long diatribe about things to do for that perfect ending to a the hours on the smoker. Wet sauce, dry rub, do this, do that, salt them, don't salt them, marinade, dance a jig, down a shot of whiskey, and on and on.

One day I decided to smoke ribs on the spur of the moment. Like, fire up the smoker, remove ribs from the freezer and stick 'em in. Fortunately I had some St. Louis style ribs that were just the right length and did not require firing up the chain saw.

I guess I was curious more than anything. I was sorta wanting ribs, but mainly I wanted the smell of the smoker going on a cool spring day as I did some yard work.

I cooked them about the same amount of time I would if company was comin. Around 6 hrs, around 200-225. No salt no pepper no marinade. These were nekkid ribs and they were just fine. Not my best but they would have been good enough for family and for most of the people I would invite over to the house.

Would they win a competition? Never? Could I open a restaurant selling Eskimo style ribs? Doubtful, though Minnesotans would by them in droves if I stuck "fusion" in the name. Will I do it again? Absolutely.

A fortune cookie I do not understand

think about this for a while. It'll get your head spinning....

"All things in moderation - even moderation"

from a Chinese American restaurant in Minneapolis

Brining the turkey

I always brine a turkey when I am smoking it. This year we brined and then roasted in the oven. I am now convinced that brining is one of the keys to a great turkey.

What was interesting was that we cooked this turkey a day before Christmas in order to free up the oven for other things, and it was just to cold to enjoy smoking it outside.

This was a 20 lb turkey that was brined for 48 hrs. There are several good recipes online, ours was simple with 2 gallons of water, a couple of cups each of salt and brown sugar, and some sloshes of worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, and a couple of oranges.

On Christmas day, we looked online for advice on how to properly reheat day old turkey and keep the flavor. Found some good advice from the New York Times (finally) and followed it. They suggested focusing on the big meaty chunks of the turkey and not try to reheat the whole thing. Good thinking. Got four big chunks of the turkey, two breast halves and the two leg/thigh pieces. Turkey was nice and moist and while not exactly the same as usual, it was very close.

The brining kept the turkey moist and with a full rich turkey taste. It is several days later and the turkey is still almost as good as on day one.

Finally, I'm fat.

About six weeks ago my doctor told me that, based on my body mass index, I was obese. That's a hard word to take. But hey, according to the chart, I had spent the last two years steadily creeping from fat to obese.

Don't even ask me how this happens to a guy who runs every day. It should be impossible. But not for a guy who loves to smoke pork as much as I do. Running just helps me eat more. Anyway, for the last few weeks my goal is to be fat again. Not obese, just fat.

Hooray. Oh frabjous day, callooh, callay. I'm FAT!

And after two days on the road with Mother Delta, traveling fat is much easier than traveling obese.

Oh, Thanksgiving, get behind me, fast.

Airports make you eat stupid

Airports make you eat stupid. This was my thought yesterday as I was walking through Midway airport in Chicago, and later as I sat on a plane drinking coffee and snacking on peanuts. Coffee and peanuts. You would never combine the two in real life. Only on a plane.

But it's the airport that makes people really eat stupid. Maybe we are thinking that because we're flying across time zones that the regular food rules don't apply. In recent weeks I have observed such oddities as,  people eating lunch at 10am or patrons of Manchu Wok devouring spring rolls and cashew chicken for breakfast. Folks standing in front of a Sbarro around 9am, wondering when the place will open. Grown men carrying a bag of gummy worms. It's crazy.

The power of free

During lunch today I walked by the event shown in this picture and muttered aloud, "people standing in line.... at Arby's?" I should have known. The idea of getting something for free is a powerful motivator. It will make people do the oddest things, like stand in line for a free turkey sandwich. (In the interest of full disclosure, I am a former employee of Arby's and have not eaten there since leaving the company in the mid 1970's.)

Of course while it is free to these people in line, they know it isn't really without cost. The owner is paying the cost of the sandwich, ( the ingredients and labor to assemble and distribute) in hopes of gaining customers who will buy something else on this, or some future, visit.

Lots of other things aren't free. Someone else is paying for them. We know that. But when it comes from the government, as middleman, it's harder to make the connection to those who provide these things. It makes people do the oddest things, like vote for the people in office, as though they had something to do with creating these free things. Free prescription drugs, free school lunches, free flu shots, free digital cable adapters, free money, free armaments. Thank the unborn, and even the unconcieved, if they survive to their delivery date, they may get to pay for this, or like us, hand it off to someone else. 

Roan Mountain Shopping list 2012

This is the shopping list for the annual family trek to Roan Mountain, Tennessee. It's not all the groceries, just what my family needs to navigate through the meals supplied by others. While most years I buy from the local "American Owned" Ingles grocery in Newland, NC, this year I went to Walmart in Columbia, SC. Why I had those two to choose from is for another posting.

Bacon

Bananas

Bath Soap

BB Cards

Biscuits

Bread

Buns

Cereal

Charcoal

Cheese - Wisconsin

Cigars

Coffee

Condiments

Corn Chips

Crackers

Crystal Light

Dr Enuf and other sodas

Eggs

Esquire, etc.

Flour

Foil

Fruit

Hamburger for 8

Lighter Fluid Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pies

Lunch Meat

Margarine

Matches

Milk

Mt Olive Bread and Butter Pickles

Onion

Paper Plates

Paper Towels

Peanuts in Shell

Pinto Beans

Pork Roast

Potatoes?

Potted Meat

Pringles

Salsa

Salt and Pepper

Sausage

Sugar, SweetLo, etc

Tabasco

Tomatoes

Vienna Sausage

Wasp Spray

Wood Chips

The things scratched out will remain on the list for next year, we didnt need them this time, but you never know when we might. As usual we had too many condiments, too much charcoal, not enough margarine, just enough cigars. In addition to buying this stuff, there were numerous trips to Jacks grocery for more ice, more tomatoes, more onions. The mysteries surrounding the closing of the Davis Girls Peach shed in Roan Mountain and the unusually hard peaches at the Hump Mountain Produce Stand will remain unsolved until another year.

It was another weekend well spent. Included a nice drive with Mom from Columbia, SC to the mountain. A trip to my grandparents gravesite. A minor league game between the Elizabethton Twins and the Burlington Royals. Rain delayed the game but we got to walk around the park and get some souvenirs. A drive with cousins Becky and Barbara to Fred's General Store in Beech Mountain. Lunch at Bob's Dairyland for bbq sandwiches. The best steak dinner of the year. Hiking around Carver's Gap and the torturous jog up to the Miller homestead. Sunday morning sermon at the campground, a bit rambling but heart-felt and full of truth. Kevin's story of Inez and Aunt Bill at Harry's wake, which seems to get funnier and weirder each time I hear it. Numerous games of dominoes. NT's passion for Moose Tracks ice cream. And no gathering is complete without a few heated family arguments about things important and things trivial. A good time.

The weekend I did almost nothing

Got rid of a futon by giving it away on craiglist. Went to see "Hunger Games". Grilled steaks on Sunday night. Cut the grass for the first time this year. Loaded salt into the water softener. Went to church. Went to Costco. Got a haircut. Ran about six miles each day. Played scrabble. Watched a Cardinals game on tv. Scotch guarded the new outdoor furniture cushions. Planted flowers in various outside containers. Restocked my supply of charcoal and hickory chunks. Pulled weeds. Finished watching "24, The Complete Series", for the third time, all while running on the treadmill. Watched game 6 of the 2011 World Series, also while running. So baisically, running, watching tv, yardwork.

The Minnesota State Fair - I had to go

I realized over the weekend that I have lived in this state too long. It's growing on me.

There is an attraction to the Minnesota State Fair that is hard to explain. I suppose in every region there is some activity that people go a bit overboard. Some good, wholesome activity that people seem to take in just a bit too much. But if you don't do it, you somehow don't fit in with the natives. In St. Louis it had something to do with restaurants in the Italian section of town and/or grilling pork steaks, in Arkansas it was football. Here, it's the state fair.

Everyone goes, and I'm only exaggerating a bit. It is a topic of conversation at church, the beauty shop, bars, baseball games, business meetings. The questions is not "are you going to the fair this year?", it's "have you been to the fair, yet?"

I went this weekend, early, and watched the crowds roll in. I suppose in many ways it is like any other state fair, full of home baked pies, eating contests, 4H kids with prize animals on display, sideshows, junk food.

What's different is that the people here are some predominately Minnesotans. Few from out of state would come to this for a vacation. Only the toddlers are here for the first time, the rest of us have been coming year after year after year. Mom and Dad have baby in a stroller and you sense they are here not just for the fun but almost out of a sense of obligation. They have to bring junior to the fair, even if he can't hold his head up yet. They have to immerse him in this Gopher State stuff, and the fair is a big part of that. Somehow they might get in trouble if they don't. The state police will show up at the house, bag of cheese curds in one holster, a few rolls of lefsa in the other, and start asking questions, dontcha know.

My junk food foray this year was a simple one. Lefsa and butter, followed by an ice cream cone, and then about an hour later another ice cream cone. Speaking of butter.... all my trips to the fair have included a stop by the Dairy exhibit which includes the butter sculptures of the fair princess, Princess Kay of the Milky Way, and her court. This year I actually got to see a sculpture in progress. You hang around Minnesota long enough, you see people do all kind of things with butter that you wouldn't have thought possible, or necessary.

Three memories of Argentina.

Just got back from Buenos Aires with my wife. Blah blah blah, wonderful city, blah blah great art and crafts and all the like. Weather was wonderful. The memories I will take away could not be more diiferent. Three stand out. The restaurant Las Lilas was one of the few expensive restaurants I've been to that lives up to the hype. Blah blah blah steaks, blah blah blah octupus, dessert, all were great.Probably what I will remember most ten years from now. Second, my wife spending a grueling night with a stomach virus ( no photo available ). Third was Evita's tomb. Modest by the gaudy standards of this cemetery. You have to hunt for it. Hundred and hundreds of crypts.

48 hours and one lousy picture in the city of lights

48 hours in Paris, 24 of which was basically free time.
7am Sunday, landed. 830am I'm at the hotel. 9-10 went for a run in the gym. 1030 - walked to the Louvre. 1115 to 1pm, toured the Louvre, mainly to see the big three, Monna Lisa, Winged Victory, Venus de Milo. Guards with machine guns outside the Louvre. If I was Greek or Eqyptian I would be very disturbed at all of my countries treasures that have been ransacked and put on display here. 1pm to 4pm mainly walked along the Seine with the obligatory side trip to Notre Dame. Back to hotel where I conked out until 7, when I met a friend from London for dinner. Had steak tar tar, which is almost impossible to get in the US anymore. Took this one photo after dinner.

Monday, Meetings and a nice dinner in the evening.
Tuesday. Got to airport way too early due to a transit strike that threatened to tie up all the cabs, so I grabbed an early one. Met a couple from Excelsior while in the Delta check in line. Had a nice talk with them off and on as we waited for our flight. Beth and Rob, did not get their last names. She is in the same large bible study group as my wife. Small world.

This is only my second trip here but as before I was struck by how much we copied the French in the early history of our country as we designed our cities and buildings. Every building here looks familiar, because you've seen a copy of it somewhere back home

Summer to Autumn

You can't tell it from this picture but it was absolutely a fall day last Sunday afternoon when this was taken. Surprising how the trees look so green, despite all the changing colors that seemed to jump out to the naked eye.  It was 37 that morning, our first temp with a 3 handle since May. As you can tell by the attire, this was autumn, not summer. A nice church picnic to close the summer.

Combinations that don't make sense

Been working on this list for a while
things i've seen in my life that just don't go together, that I can't make sense of.....
(i've really seen this stuff, not making it up)

............................................

Hotdogs and ketchup, Pineapple and Pizza, A bride in a white dress with her baby in tow

A Minnesota Vikings jersey at church,

Fruit on meat, Ornaments on trees at Halloween

A woman smoking a cigar, A man with a corporate logo tatooted on his neck (Nascar)

Grits and sugar, Grits and shrimp, Clothes on dogs, The DH and baseball

Steak salad, Carter and Mondale, McCain and Palin

Cheez-It and Pineapple Casserole

Cheated

In business, I'm all for people making as much money as they honestly can. But I don't like it when I feel like I've been tricked, even when I deserved it. Two nights ago I stayed at the Hilton on O'Farrell St. in San Francisco. Not the best of hotels, but reliable, predictable, within walking distance of the financial district, and adjacent to a great Indian restaurant.

The M&M's I took from the mini-bar were great. My favourite candy. I dozed off with a half-empty regular sized bag next to me. What did they cost me upon checkout? $8.35.

I asked for it. I'm sure there was a sign in the room with the prices posted. I knew they would cost double or triple the price at Wal-Mart. But ten times more? Still bugging me.

So they got a few extra bucks, perhaps $5 more than most hotels. But rather my leaving as a satisfied customer planning to come back, I left thinking about the type of attitude that would charge so much for so little and wondering where else had they stuck it to me.

Shortsightedness is a bad habit. I suspect this is a problem elsewhere at this Hilton. No doubt, they'll get by without me, and the other late-night candy cravers. I stay there about twice a year. But loyal customers are hard to come by, and they just lost one......

Then again, they were pretty good M&M's.

Eating Bird

The annual turkey has been smoked, eaten and the carcass carried out to the trash. It turned out well despite my sense that I had messed it up and would never be ready on time. When it comes to smoking you can often have too much info, which is what happened in this case.

Put the 13 lb turkey on the smoker at 6am for a planned 1pm feast. Although I had the basic recipe in my head, I killed an hour browsing the internet looking at various comments on turkey smoking. Bad move, as it only made me second guess every step I'd taken in preperation. Most websites said the internal temp should be 165, but a couple said 180, a huge difference. Most indicated that it should take about six hours for a bird this size, but one site said it would take ten. Just enough difference of opinion for me to second guess my plans.

Around 11am I announced to the family that the bird would probably not be done until 3pm. The internal temp was 154 and seemed to be move higher at a crawl. Further, I was having the biggest problem keeping the temp in the smoker at a consistently high level. I wanted it at 250, but could not get it too stay long above 225. Being under the gun to finish the project by 1pm, I started messing with the charcoal and hickory chips too much.

Smoking does not work at all under time pressure. Smoking is for long summer days that stretch on and on. Give a smoke master a clock and a deadline and you may just ruin the finished product, the day, his life.

My wife, accustomed to my wild claims and extreme views on a variety of topics, refused to let my announcement mess up thanksgiving in any way. She simply said we would work around it and everything would be fine, basically ignoring the announcement. Smart move. I moved out of the house and sat by the smoker carefully tending the fire. Another smart move. By 1130 the internal was up to 160. By noon it was 165. I'm not accustomed to bird smoking and the fact that temperature changes are not linear was something I did not consider.

The finished product was ok. Tender, moist, full of that special smoky taste. The wing and back was worthless, which is disappointing not always the case with an oven roasted bird. This was my thrid or fourth smoked turkey and about as good as i've done. The real key to success was due to my wife, who mixed the brine and soaked the bird for 48 hours before cooking began, and ignored my completion forecasts. In retrospect, I think at least 90% of the success is due to her handling that right.

The day was filled with other big holiday stuff. We trimmed the Christmas tree, complete with 30 years worth of ornaments, many hand-made by the kids in Sunday School. We lamented the absence of our son. While it put a big hole in our celebration, it was replaced our knowledge that he had a great family to spend it with in St. Louis. We joined our fellow Americans in the annual tradition of watch the Detroit Lions lose a game and the Dallas Cowboys win one. For a second year in a row we watched with pleasure as Texas racked up 49 points over A&M. This time complete with a real Texas fan in the form of my oldest daughter's boyfriend. She finished knitting him a UT scarf, in the official team colours, with about 5 minutes left to go in the game. A good end to Thanksgiving Day.

Golden Eagle

We moved here in 2003. One of the things we miss the most are the peaches from Calhoun County, Illinois, just over the Mississippi River and about 30 miles north of our old neighborhood. From downtown St. Louis it's about the quickest way to get real rural real quick. If I was ever running from the law, I've always thought Calhoun County would be a good place to lay low. It's a maze of cornfields, peach orchards, hills, gullies, farm roads and thickets. (Of course, I can't do that now, its the first place you'd look for me. )

Nearly every August we would take the Golden Eagle Ferry from St. Charles, MO to Golden Eagle Illinois and load up on peaches. Like you, I've eaten a lot of peaches in my life, many from Georgia and South Carolina. They're good but cannot match these.

Since leaving Missouri, every summer the topic of peaches comes up, in particular these peaches from this one county in Illinois.... how good they are, how much we miss them, how juicy they were. The taste of a fresh peach is the taste of summer. And every August when the peach harvest was at its fullest, I'd say "let's drive down there some weekend". The response from the family was always, "that's crazy". Drive all the way to St. Louis for peaches!?

That's what they said but it's not what they mean. What they meant was. wouldn't it be great if one summer someone in our family was that wacko and would do the crazy, the weird, the bizarre, and actually make the 1000+ mile round trip for peaches.

The house was empty this week and a Saturday was approaching with nothing on the schedule. 4 am Saturday morning, i'm on the treadmill, getting in my run. 5am I'm in the car, heading south on I-35. Just over the Iowa border, I picked up the Avenue of the Saints and headed for Calhoun County.

The drive down was perfect, but rainy on the Minnesota section coming back. Most of it was through Iowa. Every American should drive across Iowa in the summer. It won't help you understand the country any better, but its a part of America that gets this special beauty when the crops are nearing their peak. The winter drive is not so nice. But in the summer.... Cornfields that make the term "amber waves of grain" come to life. Silos, farms, farmers in every direction. And there were many other little things that wove through the day. On the way down, doughnuts at the BP station in Floyd, IA. On the way back, a meatloaf sandwich for supper from the same place. Thoughts of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Richie Valens while driving through Clear Lake, IA. Nice, medium size places like Waterloo, Cedar Rapids, Iowa City. The town square in Quincy, IL, where Lincoln and Douglas debated the fate of a nation. A stop in Missouri at the "largest fireworks store in the world", which I had all to myself.

By 1pm I had finished the mission and headed back. I returned with a bushel of the worlds finest peaches. Also, the triumvirate of fireworks, firecrackers, roman candles, bottle rockets, unfortunately banned by the Minnesota politburo. 10:30 pm I'm back at home. Sunday was spent on a 12 mile run from Mall of America to the house. This was followed by an afternoon of blanching, peeling and freezing peaches, and watching the PGA, which was just down the street a dozen miles or so. I had a much better day than Tiger Woods, though I did not make near as much money.
Great trip and great to do another one of those "why don't we's" that we all have on our mind. I should do more of them, and I will.

One year

This blog started a year ago with a brief tribute to one of my earliest known ancestors. Originally intended as a commentary on my development as a barbecue chef, but I quickly realized there is only so much you can write about how you prepare one cut of meat. Go to any food website and you'll see what I mean.


Coincidentally, last night I went with my daughters to see "Julie and Julia", a movie inspired by the lives of Julia Child and a blogger, Julie, who wrote about a year of cooking her way through "Mastering the Art of French Cooking". If I judged movies by whether they kept me from falling asleep, this one would rate an A. But I don't.


My blog was inspired by the efforts of my brother and oldest daughter. After reading every entry on each blog I was overwhelmed by how much they wrote and the quality of their postings. But, here I am, a year later with a nice little collection of my own, the closest Ive ever come to some sort of diary.

The movie was preceded by dinner at Fasika, a restaurant I should go to more often. Simply one of the very best restaurants in the Twin Cities and a place that makes me happy just to walk through the doors. There are few restaurants that have this effect on me, or anyone for that matter I suppose. But if I had to name a few that just the thought of brings good memories the list would include Gene and Georgetti in Chicago, Fasika and Edina Grille in the Twin Cities, The Dry Dock in Mullins, SC, Hunan Peking in Ballwin, Missouri, and any Cracker Barrell.

Our original plan was to go to a ball game afterwards, but rain got in the way and we took in a movie. A great evening. No drama, no arguments, no tension. Just one of those perfect evenings that you can only imagine when you're changing a diaper, putting out a backseat fist fight between siblings, or helping with the struggles of fourth grade math.

Odd travel, odd governments, odd people

On road trips, a meal is often a Little Debbie oatmeal creme cookie, cheese crackers and a Coke. Not so last night when I ate at Obrigado Restaurant in Louisa, Virginia, a town 60 miles or so west of Richmond. Service was slow and the locals were more welcome than strangers, but in a small town that's as it should be. The food was so good I didn't care. My order of noodles and vegetables, aka pasta primavera, was superior to any dish i'd ever had by that name.

The week began with a meeting in NY on issues facing the finance industry. Some worry that acts of the United States to stem the panic of the fall and winter may become policy and erode capitalism in my native country. Not impossible, but difficult, as capitalism is so closely aligned with human nature. Governments will always impair the flourishing of capitalist systems. It is their nature to meddle and overestimate their ability to influence outcomes. It's not the death of capitalism, but certainly a nasty case of the flu. A free market winter. It looks dead, but deep under the snow there is a flurry of activity, an invisible hand waiting for the moment.

The day also included lunch with a friend who blames me for his current career troubles, as does his wife. He is wrong and knows it, she does not. We discussed it, dealt with it, and now move on.

The next few days included a nice long train ride from Penn station to other meetings, other folk.
The weekend brought me back to the Cities and a cookout, featuring a different friend on an intense rant. He could not understand how those of his religion support a different political party than he does. His religion and his political party are linked in a way that gets more difficult for me to grasp, the older I get. I soon left the "guy table" and sat with the women and their discussion of husbands, high school events, summer plans. A buddy from Canada soon joined me.

7392

At a very fine luncheon engagement today I was reminded that when it comes to personal service, there simply is no better restaurant in my town than Zelo.