(.)_(.)
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
merry new year
The final tally for sausage made in 2006 was 37 pounds. You may recall that the 2005 total was 75 pounds. So for people like Pete who are wondering how life might change when your child arrives, I have this advice. In addition to your sleeping patterns, sense of free time, and familiarity with poo that is not brown all changing, you can also count on your sausage production dropping by half in the first year. Now there is some important parenting preparation that you just can't find in any of the books. All you prospective parents out there are most graciously welcome.
I was so happy last Friday. I had just installed some new RAM and a new video card on my computer and they worked fine. The new LCD monitor looked great and all was well in the world. And then I tried to do some fine tuning of the BIOS settings so I could squeeze every last bit of awesomeness from the graphics card and the computer wouldn't boot. Not loading windows and not even getting far enough to let me back into the BIOS to change the settings back. I was crestfallen and SO angry with myself for not leaving well enough alone. And so with sadness in my heart and desperation in my voice, I did the only logical thing: I called my sister. And although it was late (and as I later found out she was also nursing my 4 week old niece) she helped her pathetic brother with his problem. She was able to locate the manual for my motherboard online and went about searching for some advice on how to fix my mistake. A section on 'Resetting the CMOS' sounded promising and so we decided to give it a try. While Sister guided me over the phone to the place on the motherboard where I could reset a jumper, I asked her what the heck the CMOS was anyways. And my dear sister told me, "It's the thing you shouldn't have fucked with in the first place!"
And I would be remiss not to mention our fantastic new years eve dinner. I had chosen to try my hand at coq au vin which is basically a chicken braised in red wine with some veggies. I set out to follow the recipe from the Les Halles cookbook. Noting that this dish was originally meant as a way to handle an old hen which had stopped laying, I specifically sought out a stewing chicken to use in the dish. I was happy to find one at the local grocery and went home to get to work. I removed the backbone to butterfly the bird and set it to marinade in two bottles worth of pinot noir overnight. The next evening it was proceed as expected: season and sear the bird, remove and cook veggies, add bird and reserved marinade back in the pot and let simmer on low heat for a few hours until cooked through.
Well after about 3 hours of cooking the meat on the 'chicken' was certainly cooked through but the bird was amazingly rigid in the pot. After a long slow cook you'd expect the connective tissue to be broken down and for the 'fall off the bone' thing to be happening, but not in this case my friend. I removed the bird from the pot and let it rest for 30 minutes but this saw no change in the rigor mortis impression that was going on. The skin seemed almost glued onto the meat at this point and looked disgusting. So I removed that and cut small slices from the breast, thigh and drumstick to sample them. The meat was chewy, dry and tasted like a fart trapped inside an old gym sock. This was only the second time I can recall setting out to make 'food' and ending up with something inedible. I wouldn't have served that chicken to a dog. As you can imagine I was fairly disappointed.
Happily the braising liquid still tasted good and so I continued to reduce it into a fine sauce. After consulting with Reen, we defrosted a chicken breast from the freezer, grilled that up and served it with the sauce, bread and a nice red wine. All in all it was not a bad dinner.
I'm still left wondering what the heck went wrong with the dish. Despite being a 'stewing chicken' the raw bird did not display any outward signs of being spoiled or anything like that. I did have the lid on during the first half of the braise and so perhaps there was an issue with the cooking temperature being too high for too long? Anyhoo, it may be a while until I have the courage to try that one again. I hope your meals went off a bit smoother than ours! 2 comments
The final tally for sausage made in 2006 was 37 pounds. You may recall that the 2005 total was 75 pounds. So for people like Pete who are wondering how life might change when your child arrives, I have this advice. In addition to your sleeping patterns, sense of free time, and familiarity with poo that is not brown all changing, you can also count on your sausage production dropping by half in the first year. Now there is some important parenting preparation that you just can't find in any of the books. All you prospective parents out there are most graciously welcome.
I was so happy last Friday. I had just installed some new RAM and a new video card on my computer and they worked fine. The new LCD monitor looked great and all was well in the world. And then I tried to do some fine tuning of the BIOS settings so I could squeeze every last bit of awesomeness from the graphics card and the computer wouldn't boot. Not loading windows and not even getting far enough to let me back into the BIOS to change the settings back. I was crestfallen and SO angry with myself for not leaving well enough alone. And so with sadness in my heart and desperation in my voice, I did the only logical thing: I called my sister. And although it was late (and as I later found out she was also nursing my 4 week old niece) she helped her pathetic brother with his problem. She was able to locate the manual for my motherboard online and went about searching for some advice on how to fix my mistake. A section on 'Resetting the CMOS' sounded promising and so we decided to give it a try. While Sister guided me over the phone to the place on the motherboard where I could reset a jumper, I asked her what the heck the CMOS was anyways. And my dear sister told me, "It's the thing you shouldn't have fucked with in the first place!"
And I would be remiss not to mention our fantastic new years eve dinner. I had chosen to try my hand at coq au vin which is basically a chicken braised in red wine with some veggies. I set out to follow the recipe from the Les Halles cookbook. Noting that this dish was originally meant as a way to handle an old hen which had stopped laying, I specifically sought out a stewing chicken to use in the dish. I was happy to find one at the local grocery and went home to get to work. I removed the backbone to butterfly the bird and set it to marinade in two bottles worth of pinot noir overnight. The next evening it was proceed as expected: season and sear the bird, remove and cook veggies, add bird and reserved marinade back in the pot and let simmer on low heat for a few hours until cooked through.
Well after about 3 hours of cooking the meat on the 'chicken' was certainly cooked through but the bird was amazingly rigid in the pot. After a long slow cook you'd expect the connective tissue to be broken down and for the 'fall off the bone' thing to be happening, but not in this case my friend. I removed the bird from the pot and let it rest for 30 minutes but this saw no change in the rigor mortis impression that was going on. The skin seemed almost glued onto the meat at this point and looked disgusting. So I removed that and cut small slices from the breast, thigh and drumstick to sample them. The meat was chewy, dry and tasted like a fart trapped inside an old gym sock. This was only the second time I can recall setting out to make 'food' and ending up with something inedible. I wouldn't have served that chicken to a dog. As you can imagine I was fairly disappointed.
Happily the braising liquid still tasted good and so I continued to reduce it into a fine sauce. After consulting with Reen, we defrosted a chicken breast from the freezer, grilled that up and served it with the sauce, bread and a nice red wine. All in all it was not a bad dinner.
I'm still left wondering what the heck went wrong with the dish. Despite being a 'stewing chicken' the raw bird did not display any outward signs of being spoiled or anything like that. I did have the lid on during the first half of the braise and so perhaps there was an issue with the cooking temperature being too high for too long? Anyhoo, it may be a while until I have the courage to try that one again. I hope your meals went off a bit smoother than ours! 2 comments
