Fried Chicken Moment

Last night I finally had my "fried chicken" moment, but rather than just give in to the Colonel I thought I'd try some other spot. One often mentioned place is a Korea Town (West on Bloor, between Spadina and Christie Pits). It wasn't anything special to me. Though it did come with a side of free… something. I have no idea what. Some kind of pickled thing?

Maybe that's just my tongue. It's a lot better than it was but it still feels like a "bad tongue day" and only now, 24 days after my Bleo injection, am I getting more taste back. There's still a white, quarter sized area near the injection site that's been bothersome. I think it's the slow, gradual improvement that's so frustrating. It's hard to know if it's getting better or just staying the same. At least I can eat pretty much anything now, and I've even gained back most of the weight I had lost. If I keep looking for Toronto's best fried chicken, I'll gain it all back and then some. Maybe I'll hold off a few weeks before I take on the Buttermilk marinated fried chicken, at the Stockyard Smokehouse & Larder.

Mom's Chocolate Pudding

Combine
1 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar
3 1/2 tblsp cocoa
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp of salt

Add
3 tblsp melted butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup milk

Stir and fold into lightly greased 8" sq pan or dish.

Sprinkle evenly with a mixture of 1/2 cup sugar & 2 tblsp of cocoa.

Pour 1 or 1- 1/2 cups of hot water slowly over dish. Do not stir - this is the sauce.

Bake @ 350F for 25-30 mins.

Enjoy responsibly.

I used 1-1/2 cups of hot water and baked it for a little longer (35 mins) and it stilled seemed kind of wet. I guess you just have to judge by how hot your oven gets.

UPDATE: After the pudding sat for awhile it was perfect. A few hours later I reheated it and it came out great. A fine winter evening indulgence.

Look Who's Cookin' Now

When last I was upon that rocky protuberance known to us as the isle of New Found Lande I did bring with me two exotic curios that were new to my parent's home. Wi-fi and Polenta. Polenta, cornmeal as used in Italian cooking, seemed the more popular. Please see the brief kinomatic featurette below on the grilling of said polenta now available from your nearest Dominion.

Look Who's Cookin' Now from rowdyman on Vimeo.

Flats, Failures & Taters

It's been kind of a weird weekend here in the House of Peter. Ups and downs and run-arounds. Adding to my woes was the fact my laptop sort of went blotto on Friday (missing kernel error or something after a failed system update -blah blah blah)

Saturday:
Gray and rain. Up late. No biggie. Big breakfast set everything right. I had my mind set on a goal. I made my way to the pool and did my 70 laps (it's pretty bad when you brag about accomplishing half of what other people do) and went home. Except I think I probably over-extended myself. Ended up having a monster headache - like the headache that ate Tokyo. The rest of the day was a drawn out tragedy of late street cars, jostling at an over-crowded Apple store and absolutely no luck in getting my laptop fixed. I dragged myself home and slipped into some fine Angela-wrought soup. Press reset hoping Sunday would be better.

Sunday:
Determined to improve the weekend I set about backing up all the data on the laptop and re-installing the operating system. Many restarts and reboots later all seemed well and to salvage what was becoming a beautiful day, I got my bike gear on and took to the road.

One pothole and flat tire later, I'm walking for 40 minutes back home, only to find the laptop still not so frisky. Another hour or so lost in the confines of watching a software installer install itself and voila. Back to the land of the living. Of course, it was wiped clean of any remnants of its former self but I was glad to have it back nonetheless.

Of all of the salvageable acts this weekend, none was more satisfying than digging a fork into the dirt and dredging up the familiar and friendly potatoes we've so hopelessly ignored this season. Yet there they were, awaiting us under their cover of clay. The dark Papa Negra was hard to distinguish from a stone. The blush skinned potatoes shone out like magic fruit illuminated from within or like some weird plastic apples. They roasted well, and calmly punctuated this most trying two days.

Thank you, Potato. Your comforting starchiness is my salve.

Doggy Bag

Doggy Bag

How did they do it? How did the Chinese muster the strength and fortitude to win all those gold medals? Doping? Maybe. Nutrition? Probably. In fact you may be interested to know there's a particular restaurant in Beijing for anyone feeling fatigued or lacking strength. It's called Strong in the Pan and it specializes in one "thang". Wang. Dong. Johnson. That's right. Animal Penis.

Listen to Anthony Germain's report for the March 24th airing of Dispatches as he does his best to keep it together under difficult circumstances (circumcisions?):
Click to Play the podcast.

The Chinese are well known to eat anything with wings but airplanes, and anything with legs but tables, yet this seems a bit far fetched. Perhaps as Schott's Miscellany notes, the Chinese think of animals very differently than we do in the West. Maybe this excerpt will shed some light;

"[it is said] that Dr Franz Kuhn discovered 'a certain Chinese encyclopaedia' entitled Celestial Empire of Benevolent Knowledge, which stated that all animals can be classified thus:

[a] belonging to the Emperor
[b] embalmed
[c] tame
[d] sucking pigs
[e] sirens
[f] fabulous
[g] dogs
[h] included in the present classification
[i] that shake like a fool
[j] innumerable
[k] drawn with a very fine camel-hair brush
[l] etcetera
[m] having just broken the water pitcher
[n] that, if seen from a distance, look like flies"

Or maybe it doesn't shed any light at all. Couldn't they just eat the heart of their victim? Is nothing sacred? It just seems like the last indignity you can do to a creature... serve up its dick in a broth?

Note: this is humanity reaching its very end.

Sprung!

Sprung!

Finally. A warm day here in the Country's jerk capital (jerk patties that is). I broke out the bike and rode to work today, or as I like to call it, "ruining a good pair of pants", or "riding the rubber", or "staring into the maw of death" or, well... I could go on but why bore you. I've already tried BBQ'ing. Got as far as some decent sear marks on one side of a piece of beef, then ran out of propane. WHY? Why must the gods of liquid gas taunt me so?

Because they're jealous of my awesome grill, that's why. Better days to come, no doubt.

Cake That I Ate in Two-Thousand-Eight

Cake That I Ate in Two-Thousand-Eight

Thar she be, boys... the turtle cake of 2008. A birthday tart for the ages. Fresh from the Queen of Tarts on Roncesvalles.

Only quality chocolates for this year's Advent Calendar. No toffee, no licorice (also no figurines or finger puppets). I've been reading about where chocolate comes from and how it's made and well, let's just say, claims of anti-oxidants may be a little exaggerated. With that in mind, the theme of this year's Calendar is AD-vent. Here's the cover:



Cheers,
Peter

Soak Your Ribs in Whiskey

Soak Your Ribs in Whiskey

While I'm feeling much improved, there is still a small area still healing on my tongue. Unlike before however, it is not keeping me from eating anything out of the ordinary. Why just yesterday, I ate a bagel. Now that may not seem too extraordinary but the bagel is one of humankind's chewiest and toughest breads. Eating and chomping on a toasted bagel requires the sort of tongue acrobatics best left to politicians and other social deviants. That was the first significant piece of bread that I've eaten in almost 3 weeks. This morning I ate another bagel and baked a loaf of bread. Not just any old bread, for after 3 weeks without it, one craves a savory, satisfying kind of bread.

Eating a toasted bagel requires the sort of tongue acrobatics best left to politicians and other social deviants.

I diced some olives and mixed them with a sun-dried tomato tapenade, and concocted a sun-dried tomato and olive loaf. At first I was a little worried as straight from the oven it smelled a little like ketchup. Yet it tastes fantastic and easily bests the sort of $4 "artisan" bread found anywhere in the City (of course, I can make this boast because I will have eaten the loaf before anyone would have a chance to make a comparison).

I've also been back to work for the last week or so. I'm working on something top-secret for Research In Motion. It's not that "top-secret" really, but it is easier than describing the work and
adds an air of importance and mystery which is often lacking when designing a Web site for someone (this contract is happily NOT a Web site). I've had my fill of Web work recently. I could go into detail but I'm afraid the tedium of it would immediately force your brain to jump ship from your head and hitchhike to somewhere more interesting - Oshawa or Foxtrap. I did recently get paid for a couple of things. Did I mention, I did some "voice-over" work? For a friend of mine in Seattle. She works at a publisher (actually, they refer to themselves as "book producers") and they make books and toys that include audio effects. In particular, they are making a door hanger, which, when the door is opened, sounds an alarm saying, "Intruder Alert! Intruder Alert!" The robotic drone is actually my voice, recorded and altered on some simple software. It was a bit of fun to do - even if the neighbours, who could no doubt hear me, thought that our home had been comprised in some way. The recording is scarcely 3 seconds long so playing it would be pointless, but I'm sure you've all heard me yell at some point, "Intruder Alert!!" so you can probably imagine what it sounds like.

Angela continues to be busy. The York/Sheridan Gradshow is on this week at a Distillery District gallery so she's been busy with that. I'll crash the Industry Gala tonight with a friend while Angela is on hand to be cornered by concerned parents. Gala? Sounds like Miami Sound Machine will be playing or there will be a tribute to somebody important. I'm sure there will be wine, if not cheese (I heard through the rumour mill, not far from the Fermenting Mill - sorry, Distillery District joke - that one of the show sponsors was Parmalat, the cheese and dairy concern), so I'm pretty sure there will be cheese. Note to self: bring mints. Angela has also been busy finishing up her grading and reviewing a Masters candidate's thesis - some kind of info-graphic electoral map of Canada or something. So as usual we're busy and in various shades of Healthfulness .

I almost forgot to mention... last Sunday, whilst poor Angie was spending a long day at the gallery space for the show, I was marinating my ribs in Whiskey. That's right. Short ribs, marinating in a bbq sauce and whiskey. Ok, well, we were out of true bbq sauce so I improvised with some ketchup/chili paste/garlic/Cayenne pepper etc. and the key ingredient - liquor. I let that sit for a couple of hours then added the other key ingredient, heat + time. That slo-lo technique is the way to go, my brothers. 275° F for about 2 hours, lid on the pot to keep all them juices in. Now, in the words of Carl Weathers, you got yourself a stew on, friend. It was hard to believe that this was $2.50 worth of meat. It was "fallin' off the bone" good! I think I have now freed myself from the sticky bonds of Phil's Original BBQ. Sure it took 4 hours, but it was worth it.