Today was soundtracked for me by Mark Lanegan's "Whiskey for the Holy Ghost".
The wife gets back in from a D.C. business trip in a few hours.
One hour after that, the sitter will be here and we'll be off to a wine group Meetup.
In addition to vino, the wife had a recommendation for Peachy Canyon Paso robles Zinfadel which we'll look for, I'll be taking a tray of feta/beef rolls.
Since I'm all about the easy groove, I picked up a tube of pre-made croissant dough, a package of feta, and a small pouch of dried beef thinly sliced.
Roll out the dough triangles in pairs so that they form rectangles (one triangle inverted to the other).
Fill the long axis center line with crumbled feta, followed by bits of crumbled dried beef.
Roll up the dough into a long cigar shape.
A quick trip in the oven at 350 F for 12-20 minutes (depending on the instructions for your particular brand of refrigerated tube o' croissants) and Bob's your uncle. (no, really, he is.)
Then cut the rolls into app-size length bites (1/4" to 1/2") and pin them with a toothpick to aid the structural integrity (and to make them look like cute li'l bone fide apps.)
"We got apps!"
-Beautiful Girls
Last night I got down with Tilapia fillets.
The wife was headed out of town for a few days, so I wanted a good send-off dinner.
First step, thaw frozen Tilapia (purchased in a bulk bag but in individual packets.)
Preheat oven to 425 F.
Dredge fillets in a mix of seasoned bread crumbs (I used crushed bits of unused Thanksgiving stuffing mix), and grated Parmesan cheese until well coated.
Sprinkle dried cayenne powder, black pepper, rosemary, and Italian seasonings on top of each.
Bake for twelve minutes on a buttered, foil-lined cookie sheet.
Remove and drizzle lime juice on fillets before serving.
The coating, aside from adding flavor, will protect the fillets from scorching or drying out, keeping them moist and steamy.
I leaned just a tad heavy on the cayenne, hence the moniker, "Fire Fish" for this dish.
While at the Mexican Sushi Meetup, one of the diners ordrered a "Brazil Wax".
No, not the naughty hair removal procedure of the "bikini area", but rather the drink.
Featuring Cachaça, apparently the national liquor of Brazil, the Caipirinha and Brazilian Wax, are fast replacing the Mojito as the trendy libation of choice.
When asked what I thought of it, I replied, "Smooth. It sure won't leave hair on your tongue."
Drum roll and crash.
Duke of the Double Entendre I am.
The wife and I got a sitter for the young'uns and headed into downtown for the Sushi Meetup event.
This month it was at a Mexican place.
It's a niche Meetup group that doesn't like to be pigeon-holed; go figure.
We ended up at the end of one of the tables with a group of diners we hadn't mingled with yet at the other Meetups.
One of them was a therapist by trade.
He was sharing an anecdote about his session with his own therapist.
Topics surrounding inter-mingling of the sexes.
There was sharing of ideas, discussion of perspectives, and analysis from personal recollections.
He looks over at me after a while, takes a pull of margarita, and surmises, "Let me guess, you were a bad-boy back in the day?"
Expert opinions.
I lean back, take a pull from my own Azul margarita and propose,
"Recovering is for alcoholics; let's just call it reformed."
And then the waitress was back and I was asking if they knew how to make sopaipillas
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sopaipilla ) even though they weren't on the menu.
What are your irrational fears?
Submitted by Dan Culhane.
Being overly rational.
What work of art (film, book, record, whatever) changed your life?
Submitted by bodhibound.
All of them.
Or they should.
Well, the good ones.
If any work of art doesn't change your life, then what good is it?
On the way to pick up eldest daughter at preschool, I heard a radio spot for a jewely store (you may not be familiar with the term "radio". It's like an MP3, but free to be picked off the airwaves with a tuner, crazy as that sounds, but the trade-off being the commercials, but that's the impetus for this story).
The ad was touting why a buyer would want to choose their pieces over the competition for their servicing of
"soon-to-be heirloom" jewelry gifts.
That turn of phrase struck me. I think it was a jab, but having just been struck, I could have mistaken it for a hook.
An odd tableau played out in my head as I reeled (and signaled with my left turn blinker at a light.)
Picture a middle-aged man sitting on a porch, overlooking a wooded valley and in the rocker next to him, a bored looking 20 something busy texting his peeps on his blackberry.
Old guy leans over and rips one, then dangles a watch over to the crack-berry head.
"Son, this watch has been passed down, from pocket to pocket for the better part of five minutes now, and I'd like you to have it. Remember its history and what it represents about the family as you treasure it for the next month or so."
Instant, soon-to-be heirloom indeed.
I don't know whether the root lies in the microwave oven or the drive-through window, but our cultural lack of patience for something to become special over time seems to diminish the power of words in the vein of heirloom and antique.
These things acquire a meaning because of their age, their craft, the events they have survived that separate themselves from us in history.
Our lack of patience for them to become special robs them of meaning when we bandy about these words without their meanings, robbing us both of character.
My afternoon mood was salvaged when eldest handed me her painted hand-print snowman picture project and the 19 month-old made a successful deposit on her training potty upon the return home.
Eldest's project will be archived and will have some meaning when she shows it to her own kids later. It will acquire a specialness even greater than it merits today.
Youngest's project, while celebrated, was flushed.
With it, the notion of the "soon-to-be heirloom".
Thanksgiving this year was a country smoked ham.
Soaked that bad pig in water for two days, changing it out every 6 hours or so, before oven roasting.
Fantastic flavor but we could have done better with presentation had we obtained a mandolin slicer to shave it extra thin.
The sides were yummy and the biggest hit was the day after, sour-cream-chicken-enchiladas.
Friends flew in from out of town and stayed for a week.
Plans were made for next years event. We're consolidating around a consensus for somewhere on the "redneck-Riviera", possibly a beach-house rental in Alabama. Tentatively referred to as the Alabama-Slamma' Thanksgiving bash. The concept of Thanksgiving for friends and Christmas for family is beginning to catch on in the circle and our numbers grow each year.
So, the map to the beer meetup was wrong. Horribly wrong.
I spent an hour driving around a sketchy part of downtown on the wrong side of the river at night.
I kept going convinced that I was just not seeing something obvious and all would be made clear should I persevere.
Alas, nothing fruitful came of my search and I was forced to admit defeat as I returned home.
Home, where a babysitter waited for me that still needed to be paid even though my night out was a bust.
I was bummed and a wee bit embarrassed that I had not navigated successfully.
The topper though, came the next day from the event organizer, who berated those of us who had RSVP'd but then not showed up to the event.
She admitted that the map on the meetup invite as well as the establishments own website were both incorrect, but then went on to tell us all how immature it was to say we were going and then to stand her up.
Of something like 23 Yes RSVP, only 5 showed. And those were really only one RSVP who happened to bring a gaggle of guests.
I'm guessing everybody else, like myself, were circling the same incorrect address wondering what the fuck we were all missing, feeling like idiots.
The thing I've noticed about Meetups is that they are most heavily used by transplants. People who have immigrated to a metro area and don't have an established social network, which is why they use the site to reach out to others of like interests.
That said, it means that we, the majority of Meetup users, have no idea where the places are that we are meeting at, and do not know the quirks of a city's street numbering/naming system, having not grown up there/here. Which makes an accurate map vital to a successful event.
But to blame the users for not showing up, after acknowledging, after the fact, that the map was the ass end of nowhere near the actual establishment is atrocious. For fuck sake. As organizer it falls on that person, especially if they are familiar with the area, to ensure that the map is accurate before leading the flock astray.
And then to have the balls to bitch at the group for being inconsiderate and not showing up?
Shit dude. I was out $20 for a babysitter, drove in to the city, then around a nasty bit of it for an hour (all my fault for being stubborn, granted) and had an all around fucked night, I'm just not going to feel sorry for the event organizer because she was embarrassed to have made such a large reservation, only to have so few actually turn up.
Three esteemed events, Sushi-Meetup, Wine-Meetup, and Beer-Meetup, are chatting one day as they approach M.Groove Neuter.
The Sushi-Meetup is prepared to face M.Groove Neuter when it is held up by its fellow, Wine-Meetup.
"You cannot face this boy. I have a pre-arranged event with him myself."
"Ah, but not until tomorrow night." Replies M.Groove Neuter while rubbing his chopsticks smooth.
Then Beer-Meetup now steps between the other two events.
"Neither of you can have him, he has RSVP'd with me already."
"But not until Thursday next." Explains M.Groove Neuter, "I will be with you all in due time; now shall we begin?"
