Saturday, September 23, 2006

what are your fave dishes, weird crushes?

ok - it's saturday night (here) - the iran war thing is doin my head in - time for some GSF kickin back. two things:

first: trex has a post up about weird crushes. his: "Johnny Freakin’ Knoxville." Jane has a joan jett crush. As for me, I'm not gonna tell you about any weird crushes, per se, but I did have a weird crush moment recently - I wrote a post about it a number of times and then deleted it again and again.

4 years ago, there was a BBC presenter by the name of Anita McNaught. I used to tell my guests to STFU whenever she was on the teeve and all of my friends thought that I must be in love with her brain or something crazy like that. You tell me:




Stunning, right?

Anyway, she disappeared for a while, but she was in the news recently. Remember how two journos were kidnapped in Palestine or somewhere, some doofus from Fox and some New Zealand guy? It turns out that Anita is married to the NZ guy and she was making statements calling for their release and whatnot. At the time I figured that it was poor form to say 'omg - i have a crush on that woman' - but now that TREX has opened the door for discussion about weird crushes, it's maybe safe to mention it. (although this probably isn't quite playing by the rules, cos having a crush on her makes all kinds o' sense - and it's not unusual for me to have crushes on gorgeous, clever, elegant women. funny about that.)

crushing on the wife of a kidnap victim is wrong, right?

so, ummm, who do you crush on? anyone weird?

kickin back on a saturday night, part two - here's uranus:
"We should be swapping recipes. I have this great way of charcoal broiling roast beef..."
frankly, i have no idea what 'charcoal broiling' means - but it sounds tasty. i mentioned that i had some carbon based visitors recently - she's old-school italian, a great cook, and she taught me a thing or two while she was staying here - i made particular note (literally) of her risotto, and i've tested it a couple of times in the interim. i'd always been told that risotto was a pain in the bum to cook and that you had to keep stirring it and all that. not true.

here's what you do (from memory) - you can basically use whatever vegetables you have in the fridge.

get a frypan thingy with a lid - heat up some oil, perhaps a quarter cup, throw in maybe have an onion, diced, and a few cloves of garlic, crushed or whatever with a tbl of butter. after a few mins, throw in your 'hard' vegetables - carrots, celery, whatever else, for example. toss them for a few minutes, and then put in 1/2 cup of arborio rice per person - toss so that it is all covered with oil and such and then in a few minutes you can see the 'eye' of the rice - which basically means that there's a change of texture where the external bit of the rice becomes a bit translucent, and the inner part of the rice is visibly distinguishable. then you add a glass of white wine, and stir a bit so the rice doesnt stick to the bottom. when the wine has been absorbed, you add a few cups of stock (make sure you have pre-boiled the water) and you add all your 'soft vegetables' - maybe pumpkin, capsicum, mushrooms, peas, corn - that sort of thing - put the lid on the pan and turn the heat right down. keep an eye on it, stirring occasionally so that there's no stickage, and if the liquid starts to evapourate, add another cup of hot water/stock as required.

if you keep tasting it along the way, you'll know when to stop adding liquid cos you'll know when it's ready. as it approaches readiness, stir in some parmesan and a dollop of butter, and some salt/pepper to taste.

so far, i've found it difficult to not cook too much, but it tastes great the next day anyway - so there are worse problems that we face.

try it and tell me what you think. i once fell in love with a woman who was a great cook, and her advice was that when you cook a new recipe, you should try to cook it twice in the first week so that you quickly capitalize on your first experience. but what would she know?

so this is part two of 'kickin back with lukery' - what are your fave dishes?

26 comments:

Anonymous said...

I ran a business for a while. I worked from 7am till 9pm driving a large truck 300 km a day around Melbourne. I would usually fill and empty the truck 3 times a day with fridges, washers, lounge suites etc and deliver it everywhere. Think of doing an entire house move every single day of the week and you get the idea of the kind of fun I had. I used to jokingly tell people that I was always in a hurry because I had to get to the gym. Anyway, the story was always the same. Late every night I tested pizza houses all over Melb to discover the perfect pizza. Nearly always the same - "a large cappriciosa with anchovies" capped off with one or two bottles of cold beer. These days I eat curries. But God help anyone who comes between me and a pizza cappriciosa with anchovies and two cold beers. All bets are off!

Unknown said...

I love Anita McNought!!

That was her on those messages? Those broke my heart. I am so glad they are together again.

You know, I was so disgusted when they turned the reich wing shit-hose on those guys, Wiig and the other guy. After what they went through.

That might deserve its own post.

Anonymous said...

Okay, i have too many weird crushes and I dare not list them, except for one... I adore Jeremy Irons and James Spader. When I saw Sex, Lies, and Videotape, the broken character that Spader plays, coupled with the sexual play off of that emotional triangle just blew me away.

Irons made my radar with Dead Ringers and had me at M Butterfly. Yes, again, broken, damaged people, lost in their own self-absorbed sexuality and pain. Odd really, but there you have it.

I dated a guy who played Keyboards for NIN during the first Palooza and I had a strange crush on him... I only liked him from a far, it was odd. He was far too attractive to be interesting, but far too attractive not to be. How is that for strange.

In general though, I would say that all of my crushes are strange, so it is hard to pick a winner. I think it is me who is strange, however, not the crushes, who are probably normal.

I went through a phase where I was just learning to play Moonlight Sonata by Wolfie and I decided that I would only marry a man who could master it. Sad to say, the boys I was dating at that time all played guitar and they all took it very seriously. Thank god I moved on to Lolita. After having read it, I decided in short order that a). Nabokov was my god, b). that I would never write with his ability, sad, c). that anyone I married would have had to have read Lolita and Ada.

My boyfriend at the time read both and I married him. So there you have it. I am nuts.

On the food topic: i am a sucker and a lunatic for dol sot bi-bim bap, tika masala, or any type of shrimp cold salad... now i am getting hungry

Anonymous said...

Argh, I wish I could edit... it should read "three" not "one" and grammar is quite horrid. just edit as you read and imagine me actually capable of grammatical correctness..

Superteemu said...

Baked potatoes, with dressing of sour cream, wild mushrooms and smoked reindeer (Santa has no use for them when they get to old to pull his sled.) I make good spagetti carbonara too, but who doesn't after a couple of tries... For dessert, coffee and cloudberries with whipped cream or cheesecake.

Now, I'd love to bake some potatoes for Tina Fey and me, but I'd rather take someone with her appearance and firebrand political conviction and even bigger eyes. I have someone in mind, but I'd hate to damage her cred by judging her by her looks. :(

Too bad it's men who prefer my company - with looks of our friend TRex here, I often get crotch-grabbed or violently hugged in bars and nightclubs by men who wish to wrestle with me, you know, THAT way. Happens with the girlsies too - last time one came for overnight visit, she was so sure of my True Nature (according to her - "Oh come on, you could be the brainy of the Village People!"), I had to "confess" I was "curious and experimenting" before we could engage into all kinds of euphemisms.

(Shiiiit, I could've played Moonlight Sonata... but that I learned for fun - it was More Than Words by Extreme and Don't Cry by Guns'n'Roses which I learned for girlsies - neither did work, btw.)

lukery said...

damien: worst.job.ever.

i quite like the occasional curry too.

lukery said...

oldschool - it'd probably be impolite for me to mention that i can throw some lobster traps in the water here and get myself some fresh lobster, right? mmmmm. tasty.

i'd never heard of Monica Novotny. she does look cute tho. Anna Niclole Smith? hmmm - but, yep, the post was sposed to be about weird crushes, so that certainly qualifies.

Rachel Ward is very sexy. australian women tend to lean that way :-)

lukery said...

Thesaurus Rex - nice to see you here. glad to have found a fellow anita fan. yep - she's married to Wiig, and that was her doing the press - it took me a while for it to click, too.

the RW 'faux-conversion-is-evil' stuff really was beyond the pale.

«—U®Anu§—» said...

"Charcoal broiling" refers to grilling over charcoal on a cooker with a lid, outdoors. You could use a propane or infrared grill--this method versus the slower, lower temperature smoking method using indirect heat and moisture. I wasted a mountain of meat and experimented for many years before finally getting it like I want it. The problems are (a) seasoning the meat so it has some complexity but the beef flavor dominates and (b) adequately cooking a thick cut of meat all the way through without badly burning it and spoiling the flavor.

The result is several pounds of beef which tastes like hickory grilled steak and is tender, but is derived from a less expensive cut. I freeze or refrigerate the leftover portion and either heat it in a conventional oven or chop it and make sandwiches. It's great and easy to make, and I'll divulge my hard-earned recipe if you're interested. But, you need a proper outdoor cooker and a little knowledge how to work it.

Talking about food is a higher calling than thinking and writing about derailing the advance of tyranny. You can thank the Bush White House for distracting us from life's real purpose.

lukery said...

Damien - btw, next time you are in Melb, try the pizzas at Cafe Umago in Brunswick St. yummmmmmm.

lukery said...

Larisa: "I think it is me who is strange... I am nuts."
i'd have to agree.

re Sex, Lies, I always wanted to be a 'one-key-guy' - SPader did rock in that flick. I'm a massive sucker for Andie MacDowell, too.

"dol sot bi-bim bap"??
hmmm - i had to look that one up.

lukery said...

teemu - funny all round. i'm with you on the 'setting-off-the-gaydar' thing. (i think larisa's second sentence to me was 'you're gay, right?' third sentence: 'are you sure?'

i've never had reindeer, smoked or otherwise.

lukery said...

uranus - that sounds tasty. especially in sandwiches the next day. yum.

(btw teemu, i'm with you on the big-eye thing. winona ryder, natalie portman, yum. for some reason i don't think we'd have to fight with oldschool for either of those two)

Anonymous said...

Lukery, re *worst.job.ever* - it PAID in spades ;) Plus I was incredibly fit. It was actually fun micromanaging refrigerators up flights of stairs, or doing tyre changes on the freeway at peak hour in the pouring rain (it's biological - the memory erases trauma.)

I've had a few pizzas in Lygon Street. Strangely, the best pizzas come from the run down suburbs. Nothing fancy, just great pizza base. -oh God, gotta run, beer calling...

lukery said...

D: "it PAID in spades"
it'd have to.

"gotta run, beer calling..."
i can hear it from here

«—U®Anu§—» said...

[I had a thing for Molly Ringwald in the 80s and made the mistake of telling a friend, who then claimed he'd met her at a local club and spent the bulk of the evening with her. I think he was lying but I couldn't prove it, and of course by then he'd taken the wind out of my sails.]

It's very good and the specialty of the house, which means you can most always have some if you're in the neighborhood. Even the kitties will eat it. Any kind of roast will work. Lately I've been using a bottom round or sirloin tip roast. Or, ask the butcher to cut a steak at least 3 inches thick (I like sirloin, any cut is good). That's usually about 5 or 6 pounds.

If the meat has silver sheathing (or gristle) outside, trim it off with a long, sharp knife. Pierce liberally. Prepare a rub with equal parts of Adolph's meat tenderizer, salt and garlic salt, and a double portion of ground black pepper. Sprinkle on and rub into the meat.

Prepare a marinade of about 1/2 cup real lemon juice and 1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce. Put the meat in a mixing bowl and pour the marinade on, coating all surfaces. Cover and refrigerate, for 1 hour to 3 days--24 hours is ideal, but at least an hour or two. I started out using such things as barbecue sauce and picante sauce in the marinade, but found the sugar makes the meat burn and it gives it an unnatural flavor, so I abandoned that.

Start the charcoal and let it cook down so it won't flame up, usually 30-40 minutes, or bring your gas grill up to temperature. Now the tricky part: precook the meat in a microwave. If you overcook it, it will taste like liver despite the grilling, and you don't want that. My microwave is 900 watts and I give it about 1.5 minutes per pound. Adjust the cooking time depending on your microwave's power.

Put the meat on the grill and cover. Turn the meat every 5 minutes, cooking on as many sides as possible. Cook for a minimum of 40 minutes. You can butterfly cut the meat and it will cook faster, but make sure you turn it about every 5 minutes. I don't do that, I like the result better leaving it thick, and it should come out medium rare to medium depending on your fire and the meat's thickness.

Anonymous said...

oldschool, you just lost all yer street cred w/that Julie Roberts thing. hah! i laugh and point in your general direction, lol

Larissa: Jeremy Irons *pant pant pant w/my paws up begging for more*

and Nabokov was my god don't get me started on him, genius philologist w/English as his second language. Lolita, Ada and especially Pale Fire are brilliant.

Superteemu: I make good spagetti carbonara too, but who doesn't after a couple of tries...

*snigger* um, me.

Luke: Andie MacDowell (there goes yer street cred as well) hah! lol

i had to scroll past all the food-y comments. *drooolllghlurghlllllll* England: WORST. FOOD. EVER.

weird crushes? like when you fall in love/lust w/dudes who you think are w/i 10 years of your age and then you find out like you're old enough to be their mothers? or (for fuck's sake!) grannies?

i could puke at myself. sometimes i do.

ps, i love Christiane Amanpour and i'm not that way. :-)

lukery said...

hey - i shoulda said 'i USED to be a sucker for mcdowell' - and hey, this is sposed to be a 'weird crush' thread - so there! (and you're not sposed to laugh! (or perhaps you are))

i havent read Pale Fire. shame shame.

"i'm not that way"
perhaps we should have a 'not that way' thread. i'll go first. jude law. omg.

Anonymous said...

Luke: i havent read Pale Fire. shame shame.

tsk tsk tsk...your loss. /truly/.

jude law. omg.

*smacks side of head w/palm* OY!

oldschool: Goddammit Rimone - I like Julia Roberts.

but but but...her choice of parts/films she's in (much more but will hold off)

without any of the other physical characteristics of my other choices...

LOL!

Anonymous said...

oldschool;

Lobsterrrrrrr, totallly yuuummmm. I love Lobster Thermador, but nowadays, you have to go into NYC to find anyone who can make it. Still. plain lobster works just fine.

There is no comparisson to Maine/New England cold water lobster. Wish you were here. We go to Captain Scott's all summer, for lobster rolls, hot or cold. Then we go to the Sundowner every Wed. for lobster special. The best lobster bisque anywhere I have ever found since the 80's. Sinfully good. We can ship from here. Want me to send you some Fed Ex? They do that.

Being Sicilian, it's really hard to name a favorite. All this talk of pizza is making me remember my grandmother's dishes. Of all the different kinds of pasta sauces, I always loved what we called summer sauce, made with the too many tomatoes in the garden, sauteed in olive oil,, with garlic and onions. Fresh marinara. My grandmother always topped it with snippets of basil and grated aged ricotta. There was always a great debate on what shape pasta we wanted. You'd be amazed at what a big difference Italians think the shape of the pasta makes to the taste of the dish.

I loved going clamming as a child because it meant we were in the water all the time, and then we had linguini with clam sauce, or baked stuffed clams, and clam pizza. MMMM. We are fortunate to have a great Italian restaurant in town, Tony D's. THE best calamari and everything else really. here and there he gets in trouble with the man for running numbers, but the food is so good, he just pays a hefty fine.

I like to cook, generally, but at the moment I am burnt out and just want to go out to eat or do something minor. I'll recover.

Crushes?? I think I was born too serious for my own good. As a very small child I loved Tyrone Power because he looked like my Dad. Years later, I met his daughter,
Taryn Power, through my Native American work and we instantly clicked. She was raised in Italy and spoke better Italian than I did.

I went to an all girl's prep school and by the time I was old enough to think about boys, I met my future husband, who was a celebrity, being the local disc jockey and student who had played the most leading roles at the University of Connecticut Speech and Drama Department. He was drafted when he graduated and we eloped. He was assigned to Army Public Information Office in Atlanta, GA. and did radio and t.v. commercials for Army Recruiting. He also worked at WAGA t.v, part time as a t.v. new anchor. When he got out, he was hired by WNEW radio in NYC, the youngest disc jockey/newscaster they had ever hired. Let's just say he took up all the celebrity oxygen. I don't know if any of you remember the old M & M commercial, Melt's in your mouth, not in your hand? That was us.

My crushes were on other types of personalities. Jack Kennedy, Arthur Miller. I've mentioned that I figured out how to get nine McCarthy delegates from CT. to the Chicago convention. I've never mentioned who the other eight were. Amoung them were Paul Newman, William Styron and my fave, Arthur Miller. Very heady, all the way around. Mind blowing times. I had to get a divorce over my political activities. Only room for one celebrity in the family, I'm afraid. getting hired by Abe Ribicoff was the last straw.

I like broad shoulders and not too perfect looks. I like an interesting face so I've have been noticing Gerard Depardieu. Frenchmen really do say OOooolala.

Anonymous said...

Mr. U, that recipe has me drooling over here. When I come back later, I'll post my recipe for to-die-for homemade hamburger buns. Your roast will be terrific on those.

My family goes back to Irish Stew, a little German Sauerbraten, and Norwegian lutefisk, which rivals British cooking, most definitely. One serving of that yukky-remains-of-cod-fish contains 2500mg of salt. Urgh!

Paul Newman??? . . . sigh . . . ;-)

But, I manage to develop crushes on the more cerebral types, having learned that the pretty boys are usually just enamoured with themselves and can't hold up their end of a conversation, unless of course, it's all about them.

Anonymous said...

Okay, here we go. This recipe was developed by me. ME, after years of baking (having a fondness for peasant food and REAL bread that is made of something besides air).

I used to bake about every other week - as many loaves as the oven would hold, usually six or eight, which would be frozen and eaten up over the course of a couple of weeks, then I'd do it again. The trick to having homemade bread in the house is to never run out. Otherwise, the aroma is so compelling one can scarf down an entire loaf all by one's self. Believe me. I know.

Now that I have no need for so much done at one time, I invested in a bread maker machine a few years ago on the theory that, since I had already proven I knew how to do it the old-fashioned way for multiples, one loaf at a time was okay with a machine doing the hard work. The first year or so was spent experimenting with old tried-and-true favorites and eventually I had a yen to see what I could do for decent hamburger buns - the commercial variety being too airy and easily overwhelmed by a good cheeseburger, making a squishy mess. I fiddled around with the proportions of ingredients to come out with buns that were substantial, but still soft and not too high (that turned out to be a bit of a problem) so that one didn't instantly think of Dagwood when faced with a sandwich made on one.

Potato Bread/Burger Buns

Combine in the pan of a 2.5 lb. or larger bread machine (or in a big bowl of a mixer with a dough hook or large food processor):

2/3 cup instant mashed potato flakes
3.5 cups water, heated to 115-120 degrees F.
1/2 cup butter or butter-flavor shortening


[instructions for mixing are all for the bread machine. Adjust as needed if you're using something else]

Add on top of the liquid and melted shortening:

4 cups all-purpose white flour

Sprinkle on top of the flour:

1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon salt
3 tablespoons gluten (try a health food store for this)


Using a fork, lightly toss the foregoing in with the flour.

Add as another layer on top:

2 more cups of flour
2 T granulated Yeast - again, blend in lightly with that fork.


Turn Bread Machine on to "Dough" setting. Monitor the machine until all flour is blended in. Adjust water/flour if necessary. It will rise too high for the bread machine (we're testing the limits here, lemme tell ya . . . but it's okay. We're not going to let the machine bake this. Just one caution: To avoid overburdening the motor, start it out with a little less flour reserving the rest to add a little later in the mixing phase by tablespoons sprinkled over the surface of the dough ball.)

Check it periodically and use a heavy duty rubber spatula to beat it back when it rises to high and lifts the lid. My machine takes about an hour once the ingredients are all mixed in to go through two rising cycles.

Note: It helps to carefully watch the ratio of water to flour. When it is all blended, it should be glossy and just a wee bit sticky to the touch. After rising twice, it should NOT be sticky when you push on it lightly with your finger. If it is sticky at that stage, work in some extra flour when you turn it out on a board to shape it. Ideally, it should be as easy to handle as children's modeling playdoh. If it is sticky, it doesn't have enough flour in it and will rise nicely in the oven, but fall before it is done baking making for a still tasty, but not so pretty end result.

Turn it out on the cutting surface. Let it rest covered by a kitchen towel or waxed paper. After a few minutes (you can use the time to clean up), cut it into 5 oz. pieces for Hamburger Buns. Knead just enough to make a seamless ball, then flatten with your hand and place the level circle into baking rings on a cookie sheet. My all-time favorite pans for bread are unglazed stoneware. For these I use a stoneware jelly-roll pan that holds six 4-3/4" bottomless tart pans. The sides are about 3/4" high and produce that traditional hamburger bun shape and signal where to slice. Cover the rings with a kitchen towel and let dough rise again until double.

At this point, you will observe there is a whole pile of bread dough still sitting over there on the cutting board. It should weigh about 1 lb. 12 oz., which is EXACTLY right for my unglazed stoneware bread pan for a regular loaf. Sometimes it is heavier and produces also a couple of dinner rolls or maybe a couple of extra buns. I never have a problem figuring out what to do with it. So, go ahead - knead, shape, and plop that part in the pan of your choosing, cover with a towel, let it rise until double, like the buns.

Turn on the oven (375/400 degrees F., depending on your oven) to preheat when it looks like the breads have nearly risen to the double-height place.

Brush with an egg wash (a whole egg beaten with a fork and a little water) for a high-gloss finish and sprinkle with sesame seeds, if you like. [I like!] The loaf will need to have it's top slashed with a sharp knife after you've brushed on the egg glaze and sprinkled the sesame (poppy?) seeds. This is functional, not just for looks, so don't skip it.

Then, into the oven with both. The buns will take approximately 25-30 minutes; the loaf 35-40 minutes. If in metal pans, the time may change a bit. Bread is finicky, so be prepared to keep an eye on it. If in doubt that it is well and truly DONE, take it out of the oven, turn it out of the pan and thump it on the bottom. If it reports a hollow sound, it's done. The buns are done when they have attained a golden-brown sheen and both give additional clues, like cakes, by pulling away from the sides of their containers.

Pull them out of the oven in turn, remove them from their baking pans and set out on a rack to cool. Do NOT pack them up in plastic until you are certain they are fully cooled. Otherwise, you get moldy bread in a couple of days. Not good. I usually let them sit out under a towel for a couple of hours at least. Then, before packing them up, I slice the buns and pack them in a regular loaf style bread bag in a stack. They go into the freezer on edge.

Yum.

. . . and the loaf? One slice of this toasted lasts me until lunch time.

Feel free to email me if you have any questions [baxtl at hotmail dot com] :-)

Anonymous said...

Oopsie! I forgot to mention, the rings should be brushed with butter, shortening, or sprayed with a non-stick coating; the bread pan also greased before putting in the unrisen dough. Sorry!

Anonymous said...

no offence to anyone here, but i've scrolled down as quickly as i could on all the food posts. |-(

*droooooollllllll ghllurrghlllll*

is having a crush on Noam Chomsky weird? does that count? what about dead people? Wm Burroughs, Hunter S Thompson, Joe Strummmer, Charles Bukowski, Bill Hicks, like that?

as well, for some strange reason, both dudes and chicks i've met over my entire life think i'm gay (and i don't look androgynous apart from my choice of clothing). i really never cared nor do i care now. just sayin'.

i always preferred dudes who looked androgynous (chicks as well) for some strange reason.

Anonymous said...

Dammit! Where are you, Luke? You're missing out on all the excitement lately...like this: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/10/3/131857/563

I miss your posts. I'm going through withdrawl here. Throw me a bone or something.

- Jiminy Cricket

lukery said...

jiminy - are you having trouble seeing my posts?

i havent gone anywhere!

perhaps you need to clear out your browser cache or something?