Breaking Addictions

If you've seen my previous post about quitting smoking, I make something of a hobby of breaking addictions. I am now 15 years without cigarettes, 6 years without Coca-Cola.

Now I am one month without chocolate, and it has been teeeerrrrriiiiibbbbbllllleeeeee. The other day, I was buying some ice cream and realized, I can't have chocolate ice cream. I can't have a chocolate eclair. I can't even have a chocolate donut. Never mind the dark chocolate that I love. I have given it all up.

Why? For years I have had this pain in my right side. When it first appeared, a doctor checked me for gall stones and liver disease and there was nothing there. But the pain was always there, sometimes bad, sometimes not, but always there. About a month ago, I had the idea that maybe it was something I was eating.

What is the one thing that I eat every day? After thinking about it for a long time, I realized that the only thing I ate every day, or almost every day, was chocolate. As an experiment, I quit eating chocolate. After about a week the pain in my side went away. I still get twinges, but for the most part it is gone. I also feel better overall.

But dear God in heaven, why did it have to be chocolate?

A Plea for Help

To all parents of young children (of which I am one) - please teach your children basic table manners. I'm not talking about eating with one hand in your lap or which fork to use with which course. I'm talking about disgusting mouth noises.

One day your child will lose a friend, anger a coworker (and possibly lose a job), fail in a job interview, annoy a prospective client and lose a contract, or bomb out on a date, for the simple reason that you never taught them to eat with their mouth closed. Few things are more disgusting than sitting across the table, or sharing a space like an office cubicle or a bus seat, with a person who cannot , for example, eat an apple without an accompanying symphony of sucking, smacking, grunting noises. The worst part is, this person usually has no clue that their barnyard eating habits are impacting those around them, making them want to leave at the earliest opportunity. They're just happily munching on an apple - like a horse.

And that, dear parents, is your fault and your fault alone. So please, think of your children. Think of their future. Teach them to shut their cake holes. Because if you don't, no one else will.

Flush Month

Summertime and the livin's easy. Catfish are jumpin', and the good times keep rolling in. So far this month I've put up 5 quarts of peaches, 6 quarts of peas, and 9 quarts of creamed corn. Tonight I'll be canning beans. We also have a counter covered with tomatoes, some of the ugliest and best tomatos I've ever grown, though certainly not the largest. Four of my plants came from here this year, including the purple calabash - an enormous, sprawling plant which produces an insane number of small, hideously deformed tomatoes in Joker purple-and-green.

And as predicted, July is also the month for short fiction. I just sold another story to Murky Depths.

Now, if only an agent will sign on to represent my novel, everything will be swell.

Remember to flush.

Say Can I Have Some of Your Purple 'Maters?

Yes, I've been eating them for six or seven days now

Haven't got sick once.

Prob'ly keep us both alive.

Thank God for China

I make all my own broth and soup stock, and my recipes are sound and never fail. They are simple and easy, if you've got the time to make them. Chicken stock, beef stock, veg stock and seafood stock all provide the base for much of my cooking, whether making enchiladas, soup, etouffe, gumbo or even simple boiled shrimp.

But leave it to the Chinese to provide us with the simplest and most wholesome of all stocks. Prime stock is perfect for all manner of soups, while clear stock is great for cooking and seasoning, sauces and reductions. They are made with the same set of ingredients:

Equal parts poultry, lean pork (bones optional), and ham (bones optional). Use junk cuts and leftovers, like the bones from your barbecue.

That's it!

Just put everything in a pot, cover with water, bring to a boil, skim the shit that rises to the top, cover partially and simmer for three hours. Strain and cool. That's prime stock.

Remove the ingredients, clean the pot, put the ingredients back in, cover with water, bring to a boil, cover partially and simmer for two hours. Strain and cool. That's clear stock.

With the same set of ingredients, you end up with two completely different stocks, ready for any number of recipes. The simplicity is its beauty, something only the Chinese could invent.

Adventures in Food Finding

I found a recipe I want to try but it calls for Szechuan peppercorns. So at lunch today I headed over to one of the few international markets in Memphis. The place is a wonder, always something new and interesting to discover, if you don't mind the smell of fish long past its prime. It's a true polyglot, where few of the emplyees speak the same language, and fewer still speak English.

But that's ok with me. The more the merrier, I say. Until you're looking for something in particular in this vast and sprawling megastore.

After much searching, I found a package that looked like it contained Szechuan peppercorns, but the English version of the label read pericarpium zanthoxyli. So I thought I would try the customer service desk.

I found a rather lovely Asian woman working the counter, so I asked, do you know if these are Szechuan peppercorns. She looked and said, rather coldly, and in something of a huff, "I don't know. I don't speak the language."

I replied, "Well, but I thought you might know the product." She smiled at that.

So I bought it, because it was so cheap, and it turns out I was right. Confirmed by a Google search.

I have found that although the service may blow, you can't beat the prices. The package I bought was roughly a third the price of online stores. You'll die when you see the price of sesame seed oil. And they have Tupelo honey for what you'll pay for Sue Bee at Kroger. Nearly everything is cheaper, and you don't have to buy in Sam's Club quantities.

Only in Texas

This is one of the weirdest stories I've come across in a long time, and believe me when I say I search out weird stories.

A Texas death row inmate plucked out his eye and ate it. Leaving him totally blind.

But of course, he only had one good eye because in 2004, before his trial, he plucked out the first one.

He was on trial for murdering his wife and two kids. He cut out their hearts and carried them home in his pockets. He was ruled competent for trial.

In Texas you have to be REALLY crazy before they think you're crazy. Can you imagine the conversation?

"He ate it."

"Ate what?"

"His own eyeball."

"The one he had just dug out of his face with a spork?"

"Yeah. He ate it."

"Well, hell, that's just weird."

Hey Mikey!

I do most of the cooking in my house, and when I take lunch, I almost never just make a sandwich. Those green box frozen dinners ain't happening for me. Tonight I whuppt up a batch of Yangchow Fried Rice to take to lunch tomorrow.



Like any other prophet, I am not appreciated in my own home. My children don't much care for most of what I make, though they do prefer my homemade pizza to pretty much anywhere else. Neither does my wife enjoy many of the things I make. I have had to learn to cook without such basics as onions, celery, green peppers, mushrooms, etc. I'm not complaining. I'm just saying.

So tonight, I ask if anyone would like to try some Yangchow Fried Rice. My oldest son enjoyed watching me make it (just like Iron Chef, he said), but he wasn't interested in tasting the final product. I called my youngest. He took one look at it and said no. I said, smell it. He did. He leaned over and smelled it again, then looked up at me and said that smells gooooooood!

He tried it. He likes it! He's only five! There's hope!

It's Alive!

Tonight, I almost killed it.

It is my sourdough starter. I've had this batch going for almost three weeks now. A few days ago, I accidentally left it out overnight and picked up a fabulous new wild yeast strain that totally changed its character. It smells like a good Belgian wheat beer now. I made some rolls that were fantastic, so I was looking forward to a long relationship with this starter and many hundreds if not thousands of delicious loaves and rolls.

But tonight, as I was feeding my little doughy blob of goodness, I accidentally broke it's jar. Starter poured out all over the counter, mixed with shards of glass. Oh no! I said. Mein Liebling kleinen Monster! I've killed you.

I collected as much as I could, strained it, and put it in a new jar with a fresh batch of starchy, sugary yummies and have been anxiously awaiting signs of life all night. A few moments ago, I checked, and it has begun to breath!

It's alive!

Oh, let the angels sing.

Thanksgiving Isn't the Sexiest of Holidays

No matter how you dress it up, and for obvious reasons. There's no mistletoe dangling playfully over your head, no sexy Santa underwear to prance around in or adult novelties to exchange (batteries included). Although the season is right for stretching out in front of a warm fire, it's more often to ease the achin' in your bacon and sleep off an overdose of tryptophan than to get some sweet luvvins.

So why do so many people get married around Thanksgiving? There's cranberry sauce on my mother's wedding dress, and I know a few people at work who had pumpkin pie instead of wedding cake. Maybe it's because the family is already gathered together. I don't know.

Anyway, here's a pumpkin pie recipe that works for me. Everybody at work thinks its fookin marvelous and asks me why I don't have my own restaurant. In this economy? Are you mental? I use Kroger brand for the eggs, pumpkin, condensed milk and pie crust, but I grind the spices fresh from whole sticks of cinnamon, nutmeg, dried ginger and whole cloves. Make sure you get the deep dish pie crust or half your pie will end up baking on the bottom of the oven. Also make sure your crust isn't broken. If you wait until the day before Thanksgiving, like, uh... today... all that will be left in your grocer's freezer are bags of frozen pie crust crumbles and a couple of nice pie tins. Your family will be sad and your honey won't give you no luvvins.

Sweet Luvvin Pumpkin Pie

1 frozen deep dish pie crust
1 can of pure pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie mix)
1 can of sweetened condensed milk
2 large eggs
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves
fat pinch of salt
Cool Whip

Preheat oven to 425.

Mix pumpkin, condensed milk and eggs, add spices and salt and stir until well combined. Pour into the pie crust and bake at 425 for 15 minutes. Turn the oven down to 350 and bake for 30 more minutes.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly before carving. Plate a generous wedge and add a dollop of Cool Whip. Take your insulin and enjoy.

After the family has gone home and the kids are in bed, lay your honey down beside the fire, smear with Cool Whip, and get busy. You got calories to burn.

A Soup of Conspiracies

Total Control of the Food Supply Soup

4 Trillion dollars in Corporate Bailouts
100 billion genetically modified seeds
600 million dead bees
Plastic sprinkles to taste

Use the 4 trillion to bail out GM, Chrysler, GE, AIG, Goldman Sachs, etc., so there won't be enough money left over to actually pump into the actual economy to actually make an actual difference in peoples lives.

Genetically modify every food crop so that farmers have to go back to Monsanto every year to buy new seeds, and make the seeds too expensive for anyone but huge agribusinesses to purchase, thus limiting the ability of the individual to grow food for himself.

Lastly, mix generously with Colony Collapse Disorder and refuse to fund any serious scientific investigation of the disappearance of millions of honey bees. Without bees to pollinate the heirloom vegetables, plants and trees, individuals won't be able to grow their own food at all, even if they have been careful husbands of the earth.

Sprinkle liberally with deadly plastic confetti and serve to everyone whether they like it or not. They will have no choice but to eat it, and pay you for the privelege.

The Twinkie Defense

In today's installment of Fun Food Facts, we bring you...

The Otis Spunkmeyer Banana Nut Muffin, one of the most unfortunately-named food products around.

The Otis Spunkmeyer Nanana But Muffin sports these nutritional benefits:

• Reduced Fat: No more than 30% of calories from fat and no more than 10% of calories from saturated fat
• Zero Trans Fat
• Whole Grain
• No more than 30% added sugar by weight

But look carefully at the packaging and you see that each Otis Spunkmeyer Banana Mut Nuffin is considered to be two servings, as in the number 2, to be eaten by two people, though it is quite clearly just one muffin, unlike the Twinkie.

And each of those servings within that one muffin contains 210 calories. Or, to be more realistic, each muffin packs a nutrional wallop at 420 calories. Which is also how many calories are in a McDonald's Quarter Pounder with Cheese. And although it is made with whole grain, the Otis Spunkmeyer Manana Nut Buffin actually has less dietary fiber than the Quarter Pounder. Go figure.

In fact, you might as well open a package of Twinkies, as two Twinkies have less fat, less cholesterol, and 120 fewer calories than one Otis Spunkmeyer Banana Nut Muffin. Yummmm!

Tune in next week as we deconstruct the healthful benefits of Yoplait Banana Cream Pie Yogurt and answer the question, what is it with this dude and bananas?

Spare Change You Can Be Relieved Of

Prices at McDonalds just went up. A double quarter pounder meal with small fries and drink will now run you over $6.

Like the woman said when I paid, everything's going up except my paycheck.

i know how hard it is to put food on your family

Is it just me, or has the price of groceries increased dramatically in the last three months?

I used to be able to spend within my weekly grocery budget without too much difficulty. But a few months ago, I noticed I was going over by five, then ten dollars a week. Two weeks ago, that jumped up to twenty-five, and this week, fifty dollars over my budget.

I'm not buying more name-brand or upmarket items. My cart wasn't even full. This is a disturbing trend because, like most people, my salary isn't increasing while the cost of everything else is.

I'm going to have to start looking for options to reign in my grocery bill. I don't know where I can make more cuts. But something has to give.

How to Boil Rice

This may seem like a waste of blogspace, but I simply must share my discovery.

When you cook regular white rice, does it end up fluffy and light or sticky and gloppy? Do you follow the directions on the package? Or the cookbook? Or the cooking show on television?

You know the directions I mean, the ones that say rinse the rice in cold water to wash away the excess starch. Excess starch sticky and bad. Right?

Wrong!

A few weeks ago, I was in a hurry trying to get supper ready and I skipped the washing step. My rice always turned out sticky anyway, so I figured, what difference could it make?

It made a world of difference. The rice turned out light and fluffy and wonderful. I thought it was a fluke, so I have tried this experiment several times since, with different kinds of rice, long grain and short, even sushi rice, and the result is the same. If you want light, fluffy rice, DON'T wash it before cooking.

Where in the world did this rice-washing myth come from? I think I have it figured out. Rice made for eating with Chinese and Japanese cuisine is supposed to stick together, especially sushi rice. So they wash their rice to make it stick together. Logic says that if you wash off the excess starch, the rice will be less sticky, but the opposite is true. Washing off the starch makes it more sticky. I believe this method of cooking was transfered over to the American table and the American cookbook, but for the wrong reason.

Americans wanting light, fluffy rice find themselves unable to make anything but sticky glops of rice, because the directions tell them to wash the rice before cooking. So they end up buying this stuff:

because converted, parboiled rice is the only commercial rice that comes out light and fluffy. You certainly don't buy it for the speed. Cooking this stuff takes almost as long to cook as regular white rice, and the quality is less than desirable.

So next time you buy a bag of rice, first make sure it's grown in America (support the local farmer), then follow the cooking directions except for that whole washing part.

And as an added bonus, rice cooked in this manner makes excellent stir-fried rice.

Why Isn't This on the News?

Did I miss something, or did the price of cooking oil pretty much double over the last week?

Eat It, It's Good for You

Or not.

Dutch scientists have created a unique lab to study the way we choose the foods we eat. It's a canteen, filled with cameras, where they will watch and record not only the customer's food choices, but also how much they eat of what they choose, all in an effort to divine the reasoning, or unreasoning, behind their choices.

Why? Because they can. Because there's a ton of money to be made using subconscious triggers to make us buy or not buy things. Every major food manufacturer, grocery store and restaurant in the country is already spending millions on R&D to try to influence our choices. And as the article points out, 80% of our food choices are irrational and subconscious.

Think about it. What is something you never eat? For my wife, it's seafood. "Nothing from the sea," or the lake, pond, or river. No fish, no shellfish, nothing. Why? Because when she was a little girl, she watched her father gut a fish. Since she was about eight years old, she has refused to touch anything that formerly lived in water. She eats beef, chicken and pork, even though those are gutted, too. She doesn't even know if she likes fish, shrimp or lobster. Her irrational food choice stems back to a mildly traumatic experience in childhood. Because part of every person's self-identity is built upon what foods they will or will not eat, to eat something that you "don't eat" is often beyond our ability to challenge - "If I eat this, I will cease to be me, since I never eat this." The unconscious prohibitions are too great. For most people, their food prejudices can only be overcome by an even greater trauma - starvation.

How many food prejudices do you harbor? We all have them. I hate Brussel Sprouts, because they smell like little balls of fart, and but I will eat or at least try pretty much anything else. I've hated green beans my entire life, until this past summer, and now I love them. It wasn't so much that my tastes have changed, although they have, as I made a conscience decision to eliminate another food prejudice. I began making those conscious decisions when I was about eighteen, when I tried raw oysters for the first time. (Beer was involved.) Up until that time, I had numerous food prejudices, more than most people.

Anyway, the whole science experiment I mentioned above only confirms my earlier suspicions. I do all the grocery shopping for my house. I am not hypoglycemic, but almost every time I go to the grocery store, I get the shakes. When hypoglycemia hits, you kind of lose control of your higher brain functions. All you care about is finding something to eat, and quick - the more, the better.

This is a relatively new thing. It's been happening for less than a year. The conspiracy theorist in me suspects my local chain grocer is spraying something into air to induce hypoglycemia-like symptoms in their shoppers. It is subtle, but real, and it always seems to hit me as I get ready to leave - when you are most susceptible to impulse buying. That's why they have always put candy, magazines and knick-knacks around the cash registers.

I don't know if this is really happening, or not. The thing is, I wouldn't be all that surprised. As long as it isn't specifically illegal, you know they'll do it. Why wouldn't they? If they aren't gassing us to make us hungry now, they'll probably do it in the future.

Oh Holy Night

Because there's no such thing as "too offensive."

Good Eats

Although I love autumn and the smells and the fairs and football, and the first cool nights and the sky full of stars, and although summer in Memphis is generally a miserable affair, with the smothering heat and the humidity and the dim endless nights and the mosquitoes and the grass that always needs mowing, I do love summer for the food - the fresh vegetables and fruits.

By early spring I am usually sick to death of weak, tasteless grocery store produce, and that combined with my inherited horticultural gene usually induces me to plant a garden, but this year I decided to restrain myself because we were planning to move and I didn't want to do all that work just some so stranger could enjoy my tomatoes. But alas, the move hasn't happened and I am gardenless for the first time in almost a decade.

Luckily, I have parents who grow a garden, and I still live close enough to the country to get out and find a fruit stand sometimes. This past weekend being the perfect example, we drove down Highway 72 toward Mt. Pleasant and found a man and his watermelons and peaches. The peaches were tiny, smaller than plums, but good heavens were they good! And the watermelon!

The same day, my mother brought us a mess of green beans and a bag of peas, five ears of sweet corn, and some peppers and tomatoes. I've canned 19 quarts of her green beans already this year.

I also finally broke down and splurged on an organic, free-range chicken. I had begun to fret of late over the declining quality of my fried chicken and feared I had lost my touch. Alas, it was not my touch at fault, as I discovered last night. That lovely but expensive bird tasted as I remembered fried chicken used to taste.

So for Sunday dinner we had fried chicken, fresh peas, fresh green beans, fresh sweet corn, fresh cucumber and fresh tomatoes and fresh peppers. The peas were simply divine - I'm glad I was able to rediscover (through trial and error) my grandmother's lost recipe for peas. And as they say in Deliverence, I love good corn.

Mama Crook's Peas

First of all, these are not the peas you're thinking of. Generally, these are purple hull peas or some other kind of field peas, not your green or English peas, and certainly not black-eyed peas, which are foul seeds that taste like cigarette ashes. Purple hull pea vines grow low to the ground, though I did grow vines one year that came up to my waist and we didn't want to pick them for fear of snakes.

Shell your peas (or buy them shelled), wash them, and put them in a pot with enough water to cover by an inch or so. Add a half-slice of thick bacon or salt pork, a tablespoon of salt and three tablespoons of sugar, then cook that bitch til she's done. The sugar is the key. Without sugar, your pea will taste like shit.

Daddy Crook used to love the pot liquor. He'd crumble corn bread over his plate and pour the liquor over the bread. This is a good way to not waste any of it, because it's too good to waste. You know what they say about boiling vegetables boils all the nutrients out? The nutrients are still there - in the liquid. That's why old country folk love their pot liquor.

Never Eat Microwave Popcorn Again

Microwave popcorn is to popcorn what Cheetos are to cheese. And after you eat popcorn popped in a microwave popcorn bowl, you'll never eat artificially flavored, teflon-coated microwave popcorn again.

I give these little miracles 5 stars. They make perfect Christmas gifts, along with a bag of quality loose popcorn (which is getting harder and harder to find in the supermarket). The recipient will think you're crazy, until they try it, and then they'll love you.

Seven bucks of popcorn heaven. Pick one up at your local Target or Kroger.