DECEMBER 2012
Sunday 2012.12.30
Another Olde Lang Syne
Another year passes. Happy New Year. At the end of each year I devote a little time to reflection.
This past summer I celebrated the first anniversary of my retirement. Never for a single moment have I ever regretted the decision to retire. I have had more fun during the past 18 months than I had in the previous 18 years. I love having the free time to pursue my recreational interests, which are cooking, photography, and video, combining all three for this web site.
In keeping with the theme "old acquaintance be forgot" of the song, I always like to reflect a little on the friendships of the year. I lost a longtime friend. He tried to interest me in an "investment opportunity." After listening to his explanation, I told him it was clearly an illegal Ponzi scheme. He refused to listen. In August the Federal Securities and Exchange Commission seized the company's offices in Lexington, North Carolina, shut down the operation, and froze their assets worldwide, declaring it a $600 million Ponzi scheme. Matters became even worse for him when letters were sent to those who profited from the scheme, demanding that they forfeit all money received. He'll lose most of his $10,000 investment. That could have been me too.
Another friend is gone because he kept trying to talk me into feeding him for free. I finally asked him to help with the groceries. He wasn't happy. That happened in March of this year. He hasn't called me since.
As for new friends, I have those too. About this same time last year the mobile home park gained a new manager. I liked the former one, but the park owners didn't. Oh well. The new manager is better about getting people together for social gatherings. Almost once each month we gather for a picnic or potluck. They're fun. I like the residents of the park. They're convenient, too, because I don't need to drive anywhere to visit.
Some other positives this year: My YouTube views for all my videos topped 100,000 in August (after two years). By the end of the year (four more months) the number was nearing 160,000.
The most important event of 2012 is my TV show on a local channel. I'm calling it "The Mobile Home Gourmet." I delivered the first four shows, ready for broadcast, on Thursday. I have two more finished and I'm working on a third.
2012 has been an excellent year—my first full calendar year of retirement. A lot happened, most of which not only pleases and excites me, but gives me a sense of accomplishment as well. I go into 2013 with a positive attitude, looking toward the future.
Wednesday 2012.12.26
Heroes
I sometimes use the expression: "What I really want is heroes." I use the term hero to describe someone who is brave enough to tell the truth.
Case in point: On Sunday I uploaded to YouTube my first video that was in a format similar to a TV show. There were few positive comments. Though not brutal—people didn't hate it—there were certainly enough negatives about the video to take seriously. Now, here's the problem: I showed the video to several friends of mine before I uploaded it to YouTube. Their responses were unanimously positive, and I believed them. The problem with friends is that they want to be encouraging. They look for something positive to say, to tell you what they think you might want to hear. No. I want the truth.
To be honest, the truth is not always easy to hear. Thus the expression: "The truth hurts." Well, yes, but it is also very helpful. Reading those comments was not a pleasant experience, but I love it when the criticism is specific about the problems. I can't fix the problems unless I know what they are.
My cinematography friend and I discussed the criticism and he said the points were valid. Having all this information makes the path ahead so much clearer. I want to succeed with my TV shows. Producing them and editing them without specific guidelines is both challenging and discouraging. It is so difficult to know what will work.
Another problem is trying to figure out what works best for me. Case in point: Someone commented on my going to the refrigerator to get ingredients. "It makes you look disorganized." I did that refrigerator technique because I see it often in the cooking shows on TV. It adds movement to the video rather than my standing in front of the camera in static positions. I thought it might add interest. Maybe not. Maybe the video needs fewer trips to the refrigerator, one or two, with most of the ingredients arranged within reach off camera. Maybe sliding an item into frame works better than fetching it from the refrigerator. I need to watch more TV cooking shows with a critical eye. For example, one of my favorite cooking series is Two Fat Ladies, produced by the BBC until Jennifer died. You never see them going to the refrigerator for anything.
The important thing is that the comments, though a little difficult to hear, were helpful. I like that. I shot the Miniature Egg Rolls video again, from scratch, using none of the previous clips. After editing everything, my cinematography friend came over and watched the video with me, with critical attention. It passed muster with him. So I uploaded the video to YouTube on Monday, replacing the abomination of the previous day. Well, maybe abominable is too strong a word, but the first video was certainly not good enough. The few responses received so far on the second video have been positive. Thanks guys for taking an interest in my success.
Another issue was the name of my show—The Trailer Park Gourmet. Someone wrote to warn me that I might get myself in trouble with that name. Others are using it, including Guy Fieri of the Food Network. Thanks for the warning. The last thing I want to do now is violate someone's registered trademark. I looked around for another name. No one was using The Mobile Home Gourmet; so that is now the name of my TV show.
Like any useful lessons, we grow with the experiences, even if they might be painful lessons. I hope the constructive criticism I received will help me to make a really good TV show. On Friday I plan to deliver at least four finished shows to the TV station. They'll start broadcasting in late January.
Sunday 2012.12.23
Almost Christmas
I imagine many children would have been disappointed if the world had ended on Friday, what with the last day being only four days before Christmas. I know some people genuinely believed the Mayan calendar really spelled doom for our existence. Did they go Christmas shopping? Did they rush to the stores on Saturday to make up for lost time? Or did they do their shopping early and hand out the presents on Thursday? Perhaps we'll never know.
My early Christmas present, if I can count it as such, was word from the TV station on Friday that my last attempt to encode my TV show properly for broadcast was correct. The video satisfied all the necessary specifications; so I can now move forward. I encoded four videos that day. Tomorrow I'll video another one, Mini Egg Rolls again.
If you watched this week's Mini Egg Roll video, you saw that I used a new format, title, and presentation because of the TV show. The video was far from perfect. It wasn't even very good. A friend who was trained in cinematography and editing sat down with me to watch the first video. We pointed out the mistakes (there were many, most discovered by him) and I made a mental note to avoid them in the future.
My worst crime was the transition between clips. I had never needed to think about them before, when my videos had more of an instructional format to them. For TV, the transitions needed to be less jarring. To help, I recorded almost 80 stock clips of the flame (on, off, up, down) under each of my pots and pans. In a pinch, I can squeeze one of those between clips to help with the transition.
After several videos, I'm finally getting the hang of it. But it sure takes a lot longer. Some steps need to be shot three times rather than once. In many clips I'm faking it. You see me stirring something like a custard in a pan with a whisk while I check it every few seconds. The pan is empty. The custard was cooked and set aside a while ago. I'm just adding clips for cutaways. It's fun.
The thing is: I need to fill a video that is 28 to 30 minutes long. If a video is only 16 minutes long on YouTube, no worries. Who cares? But to fill a TV show, I need the content. So rather than my saying, "On my web site you'll find a video and recipe PDF for making Pasta From Scratch," I actually make the pasta from scratch, showing all the steps. It fills content.
And as for Christmas: I have no plans this year, again. I had to look back at my blogs for the last two Christmases to see if anything has changed. Nope. Still not called upon to cook anything this Christmas either. I probably will cook this Christmas, but I'll make a video. As for your Christmas, I hope you have a merry one.
Wednesday 2012.12.19
My Last Blog, Maybe…
My blog entry is a little late today, but that's because I just arrived home from visiting a good friend about 100 miles north of here. He's up there visiting his brother and family for the holidays. As my friend lives in Bend, Oregon, hundreds of miles away (it might as well be thousands), I only get to see him when he's in SoCal, or near to it. I don't drive much. I bicycle. I have a 1993 Nissan Pathfinder and it still doesn't have 65,000 miles on it. That's 20 years. Do the math. I put less than 4,000 miles on it per year.
You might have detected just a wee bit of frustration in last Wednesday's blog. I laugh about it now, but it was just a tad difficult to work through at the time. The frustration even entered my dreams.
I dreamed I was at my former job, where thousands of employees work, and some people in our division came up with a contest for us. We were told that we had to answer five questions printed on the entry form and that the answers are so deceptively simple we would probably make them a lot more complicated than they need to be. The contest would be like a treasure hunt. One of the questions was: "What five symbols are used to represent planet earth? Hint: Three of the symbols appear as letters in the Gregorian alphabet." Frustrated, I shouted: "This is supposed to be easy?!?"
As for my friend, I made Almond Biscotti on Monday for the family, doing a video of the process for a TV show. I love almond biscotti. It's fun to make and even more fun to eat with a cup of coffee. I'll give most of it to his brother's family, but I will definitely keep some for myself. The video was perfectly timed without my having to tweak anything to make it fit. My time bracket is 28 to 30 minutes. The finished video came out at 29 minutes, 12 seconds.
I still haven't heard from the station, regarding my last submission. Does it meet their broadcast specifications or not? Thus, a new kind of frustration is setting in. I don't want to make a nuisance of myself by harassing them; on the other hand, I need to know if the specs are okay. I have four complete videos in waiting and a fifth one that needs a second half. As soon as I get the specs worked out, I can start encoding. There is no reason why I shouldn't have my first five shows on DVD this by Friday. I'm antsy to get my stuff turned in. My goal, if I can achieve it, is to have the entire first season done and submitted before the first show airs. That would greatly relieve the stress.
Of course, none of this matters if planet Earth goes boom on Friday. It seems like a helluva shame that the end couldn't come on Monday, after a weekend—one last opportunity for the working people to live it up before time and space come to an end. If the Mayans could see so far ahead into the future, you'd think the least they would do is grant us a final weekend to party. Then again, maybe the universe still being here on Saturday morning is reason enough to party. So, stock up, just in case.
Sunday 2012.12.16
It Gets Better
Although slowly, things are nonetheless starting to fall into place for the TV show. The frustration level is starting to subside a little. I turned in a fourth disc with my first show on it, hoping it would satisfy the specs needed for broadcast. I am still waiting to hear from the TV station to know whether or not that version is correct. Although I am trying to keep my expectations reasonable, I think the fourth disc is on target. It looked like it was supposed to look when I watched it on my computer. The size of the video file is where it needs to be. I compared all the encoding specs to the requirements they gave me and the numbers match all the way across the page. You wouldn't believe how much goes into encoding a video to prepare it for TV broadcast.
In the meantime, I made a few changes to the first video. It now bears the name of my TV show, The Trailer Park Gourmet. If you've seen my YouTube videos you've heard my opening voice-over in which I talk about my "trailer park white trash mobile home kitchen." I recorded a new voice-over for the TV show because I want to avoid the term "white trash." It's okay for my web site, but it might not go well on TV. So I simply refer to my mobile home, emphasizing the encouragement that "You don't need a luxury kitchen to prepare gourmet meals." I think about some of the kitchens I've seen on TV. America's Test Kitchen is hardly slumming it. And a few of the daytime cooking show ladies have huge stoves that could comfortably sleep six. Put wheels and a trailer hitch on them and they could be campers.
Productivity is ramping up. On Friday evening I edited the show I recorded of Seafood Fettuccine. It came out perfect, at least on the computer. Yesterday morning I edited the show for Mom's Christmas Cookies, which I baked and videoed on Friday for the cookie exchange yesterday. It looks good as well. I even drove some cookies down to the TV station to assure them I wouldn't be making hot dogs with macaroni and cheese on TV. The cookies, by the way, are traditional Sicilian Christmas Cookies. The new season doesn't start until January 21st, too late for this year's Christmas; so that video will go "in the vault" for next Christmas.
Today I am making my clam chowder recipe for the TV show and on Tuesday I am going out of town to visit a friend who is currently at his brother's home about an hour from here. Tomorrow I'll make almond biscotti for their family and video it for a TV show as well. That will be five shows done in seven days. 45 shows doesn't seem so daunting now.
My sleep cycle is still messed up. I've been waking up at 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning. I hop out of bed and make a cup of coffee before I start working on a video again. Yesterday afternoon I slept for three hours.
One fun note: Someone at the TV station was interviewed on the radio by the mayor of our city. I listened to the show and she mentioned me as the newest member of their TV team. The mayor said, "A cooking show! They're popular. Who knows what that might lead to." So, I've already got a radio plug.
Once I get the final "okay" on the video specs for my TV show, everything will settle down and I'll start cranking out the shows. I think 2013 is going to be a fun year.
Wednesday 2012.12.12
Twelve-Twelve-Twelve
Does that portend anything? When 11/11/11 rolled around a "spiritual" friend said we should all pray together at 11:11 and our dreams would come true. Sorry, but we came up with the numbers, not the cosmos. Yesterday, however, was an important day. I signed a contract to deliver 15 TV cooking shows, for each of three seasons, for a small local public access channel, TVSB. When I submitted my contract I also turned in my first show.
Now comes the hard part, the part I hate, but must slog through—problem solving. I was told to submit my show in AVI format. One of the studio's tech guys said no, MPEG2 format. He wasn't able to convert the AVI. So I've been encoding and re-encoding files, using my video editor software and my video conversion software. This morning, at about 7:00 (I was up at 5:00 am working on it again) I finally came up with two discs for the tech guy to test. Hopefully one of these will work.
When it comes to stuff like this, I'm all about the shortest distance between two points. Yes, I have a 1080p wide screen professional video camera. However…
"Why not just set it to 4:3 standard definition for the TV station's specs?" I ask.
"No," my friend insists. "Record to your camera's highest capabilities. You can down-convert the files in post-processing."
"How?" I ask.
"I'll show you," he answers.
"When?" I ask.
"Uhh, when I get around to it. I'm busy."
I'm ready to start shouting. "I SIGNED A CONTRACT!!!"
He likes to shoot. Guns. So I'm trying to come up with a context to which he can relate. When you go target shooting, do you load the gun with the proper caliber bullet? Or do you load in the biggest bullet you can find and let the gun down-scale it for you? What is going to get me from kitchen (bullets) to computer (gun) to TV broadcast (target) in the fewest number of steps? We're working on that.
On the bright side, yesterday a friend (former workmate) and I put our heads together and came up with a "brand" for me—The Trailer Park Gourmet. My show's slogan will be: You don't need a luxury kitchen to cook gourmet meals. I wanted some sort of juxtaposition of trailer park and fine dining without using the white trash label. It's too negative. The Trailer Park Gourmet, when we came up with it, made me laugh. I've got a warped sense of humor. If it makes me laugh, it's good.
My first show is two recipes because neither one was long enough to satisfy the requisite 28 to 30 minutes of content to fill the time slot. I start with Eggs Benedict with Smoked Salmon and finish with Veal Scaloppine with Spaghetti. This is why I like having videos "in the vault." In an evening and a morning I was able to pull together a TV show without needing to shoot any video. Hail to "the vault!"
On Saturday of this week we will gather for another meal together here in the trailer park, ending with a cookie exchange. I will make my mother's Italian Christmas Cookies. I already have that one videoed for YouTube, but I will video it again as I make the cookies for the gathering, planning it for a 30-minute-ish TV show. I'll start on Friday. That will give me Saturday to shoot any pick-ups or additional scenes to cover mistakes or include something I might have missed. It's 90% planning.
Future videos for this web site will be shot first with the TV show in mind, and then edited as needed to upload to YouTube. Monday night I lied frustratingly awake in bed for more than an hour, thinking about future projects and how I will execute them. 45 TV shows has a daunting weight about it. However, I've done 128 videos for YouTube, so far. What's 45?
When I know about air dates and available streaming over the Internet, I'll promote my TV shows on this web site. Keep in touch.
Sunday 2012.12.9
Those Ol' Pots & Pans
I sometimes make fun of my "everyday" pots and pans when doing a video. They are at least 25 to 30 years old. The smaller saucepan has a plastic wire harness around the handle, holding it together so that it doesn't fall off. I joke in some videos, saying that someday All-Clad will discover my genius and send me a free set of their finest pots and pans to use in my videos. I'm not holding my breath while waiting. (However, if a maker of beautiful solid copper cookware were to volunteer, I could be encouraged to forget all about All-Clad.)
I mentioned a few weeks ago that we had a rock soup party here in the trailer park, everyone bringing something to add to the pot. During the planning stage I was asked if I had a stock pot to lend to the cause. I said yes, and no, and then I brought out my stock pot to explain why. My stock pot is beautiful, gleaming stainless steel, with a mirror finish that I keep polished and clean so that it will look good in my videos. I have a pressure cooker that is similarly maintained. I explained that my stock pot, heating over an outdoor stove, might take on a coloration that could be difficult, if not impossible, to remove. I couldn't risk it. The pot needed to be kept beautiful for my videos. They understood.
My "everyday" pots and pans, however, were bought long before I ever got the brilliant idea to set up a cooking website and YouTube channel. Therefore, I never maintained them the way I do my newer cookware. Lately I've been wanting to restore them to look better in videos.
There are two problems I've seen with stainless steel pans. One is mineral deposits. You won't see this if you have a water softener in your home. We have "hard" water here, which means the water is high in minerals. After boiling some things, like making stock, a white film develops in the bottom of the pan. It's difficult to scrub out, but I have a secret that makes short work of mineral deposits: toilet bowl cleaner. I keep a bottle, marked "kitchen," under the sink. Don't leave it in the pan for more than a few seconds. It can darken the metal. However, a quick squirt and an easy swirl with a scouring pad quickly removes the mineral deposits, leaving the insides gleaming. Rinse well and dry with paper towels.
The second problem occurs on the outside. Over time, a tough film develops on top of the otherwise mirror finish of the stainless steel. The haze doesn't affect the pan's functionality; it just makes it not look good. The film is stubborn; it doesn't come off easily.
I've tried turpentine, acetone, chlorine cleanser, toilet bowl cleaner, and oven cleaner spray. None of them did any good. So far, I have found only one material to remove the film and return the mirror finish—metal polish. I've been using a chrome polish made for automobiles. With a little bit of effort and "elbow grease" (provided by an electric drill fitted with a polishing disk) I was able to restore some pans. Today I ordered a block of polishing compound. It was inexpensive, green, and weighs 1 pound (454g). The "green" indicates that it is an extra fine polishing compound. It helps, but restoring the mirror finish is still a lot of work.
This discussion wouldn't be complete without explaining stainless steel. There are two types, steel that has a brushed surface and steel with a polished surface. Most products describing themselves as a "stainless steel cleaner and polish" are for brushed stainless steel. They are non-abrasive. For polished stainless steel, i.e. a mirror finish, you need to use a metal polish, and a lot of rubbing if the pan is as ugly as some of my pans.
Soon, I hope, all my ol' pots and pans will be polished and pretty for use in my videos.
Wednesday 2012.12.5
Recipes Cast in Concrete
I never know quite what to make of some recipes. I have many cookbooks. I peruse them, looking for recipes that intrigue me. I've learned which cookbooks I can trust and which ones to read skeptically. I've been experimenting lately with The Fine Art of Italian Cooking by Giuliano Bugialli. His book amuses me, but I don't think he meant it to be funny. He goes to great lengths to prove that the Italians learned nothing from the French. It was the French who stole recipes from Italy, added a few sauces, and called them French Cuisine.
Another source of amusement are the recipes themselves. It is not unusual to see bread crumbs listed, preferably homemade, and preferably Tuscan bread. He gives a recipe for making Tuscan bread; so perhaps he is not suggesting I travel from Southern California to Tuscany to buy a loaf of bread.
One issue that really stands out from those recipes is that they benefit from variations. My recipe for Stuffed Pasta Rolls came from that book. Made according to the book's directions, the rolling is difficult and the rolls doesn't look or taste very good. I modified the recipe and ended up with a delicious alternative, which was also much easier to make. This week I experimented with Lasagna with Duck Sauce.
First off, the duck: The recipe calls for cooking a whole duck in a shallow pool of sauce. Naturally, the duck needs to be turned regularly, over the course of an hour, so that each section gets to cook in the sauce. Really? I simply cut the duck into pieces are arranged all of them in the sauce. I turned the pieces over a few times, but it was a lot easier than rotating an entire duck.
Next, the sauce gets strained and all the solids, including the duck, are discarded. Bugialli does say that the duck meat can be put away for snacks later, as it still has plenty of flavor. Really? I waited until the duck pieces had cooled enough to handle comfortably, then I deboned them, saving all the meat. I chopped the meat fairly fine and it became part of the sauce.
Third, tomatoes: The recipe called for only 1 pound (454g) of tomatoes. The dish serves 8 to 10. Really? There was so little tomato pulp to add body to the sauce, I ended up with a stock rather than a sauce. What happens when you reduce a stock? At best, it becomes a syrup. I added 2 cups (475ml) of my homemade marinara and this produced a good sauce after it was concentrated a little. Add the chopped duck meat, and voilà! It was quite delicious.
Finally, the pasta. The recipe said to use all-purpose flour. Really? I thought Italians used hard durum wheat semolina pasta flour for that al dente texture they prize so much. Although you can buy dry lasagna noodles in the store, it's fun to make Pasta From Scratch. I used half pasta flour and half all-purpose flour.
The finished lasagna was delicious. A friend here in the trailer park asked me what I do with the food after I do a video. I think she was hinting. I told her I often give it away to my neighbors. But, between you and me, when it tastes this good, I don't have any friends. The recipe will be published here and the video will be on YouTube in coming weeks.
So I don't treat recipes like they're cast in concrete. They are fertile ground for experimentation. I often come up with something that is better than the original. (Hmm… How about Tiramisu made with vanilla ice cream rather than mascarpone? Stay tuned…)
Sunday 2012.12.2
Holiday Cooking
We are now well into the holiday time of year when we are likely planning foods to share at meals, parties, or to deliver to family and friends. Here in the trailer park the situation is no different.
We need to use the plural, holidays, here in the USA because on the fourth Thursday of each November we observe the Thanksgiving holiday and then around four weeks later we do it all again for Christmas. It's a double-whammy for us. Here in the trailer park the owner is honoring us with a festive dinner at their expense. In my 18 years living in this park, this is the first time the owners have provided a holiday meal for us. There are several reasons.
We have a good manager who has been instrumental in helping the park residents to arrange get-togethers to meet our neighbors. Although I always got along well with all the former managers (with one exception), our latest manager is the friendliest and most hospitable. Many of the gatherings are held in his backyard.
Another reason is that the residents have responded to the manager's generosity with more friendliness and hospitality of their own. I get along with the neighbors (with one exception) here in my corner of the park. We know each other well and we help out one another. We often greet each other on the street and take a few minutes to talk, maybe share a little gossip, if we have any that is particularly juicy.
Also, there are a couple residents that are good event organizers. I am not a party planner. I am a typical guy with a one-track mind. Give me a project and then leave me alone to get on with it. I'll do it and I'll do it well. Whether it's plumbing in a new water heater, creating a dessert, building a porch, or designing and tailoring a shirt, I seem to have a knack for getting it right. Something to be thankful for. But I am no event planner. Too many balls to juggle.
After our holiday dinner we will engage in a cookie exchange. Each person attending will bring a double-batch of cookies. One will be for enjoying at the party, the other will be for guests to take home with them. The cookies most wanted, obviously, are homemade family favorites or seasonal traditions—maybe a recipe that was handed down from generation to generation. I'll be making my Mom's Italian Christmas Cookies. She learned from her mother, an immigrant from Italy.
Her cookies were a family tradition each holiday season. When we were too small to be very useful, Mom would shape and bake the cookies. When cooled, she would frost them and then let us garnish them with colored sprinkles (nonpareils). As we got older and more skilled with our hands, we would help shape the cookies—it was like playing with modeling clay—and frost them as well. As I mention in the recipe, my mother's cookies would harden into rocks after a few days. The dog liked them—they were like sweet bones. One day I set about trying to correct my mother's recipe, doing a lot of research, and I learned that my mother used water rather than butter in her cookies. Butter was too expensive. After fixing the problems, my cookies turn out tender and delicious, and they remain that way for many days. No need to feed the dogs.
So I am looking forward to this cookie exchange. Not only will it give me another opportunity to share with my neighbors, but it will bring back some of the pleasant memories of making holiday cookies with my mom when I was a child.