July 2016
Sunday 2016.7.31
Setbacks
I experienced a recent setback, sort of. Some of you know I've been updating a few of my older videos, replacing them with newer, better, high definition ones. There is one drawback. When I delete the old one, with it goes the number of views to my channel. A popular video was the Salmon Jerky video that I replaced last week. The old video had more than 30,000 views. But I really needed to replace that one because it was one of the earliest of my videos and the technical quality was poor. In doing so, I took a big hit to the number of views on my YouTube channel — from more than 1,000,000 to fewer than 968,000.
It's not a painful hit. Lately I've been collecting an average of about 900 views per day; so I will probably recover those views in about five weeks. However, there are more videos to replace. It's going to happen again. One of my replacement videos is for New England Clam Cakes. That one currently has more than 20,000 views. The same is true for Mom's Italian Christmas Cookies, which I'll replace this fall.
It isn't an important setback. What is more important to me is the quality of my videos, not the number of views. If views mattered, I'd have a different type of channel. Rather than a setback, it can be an advantage. This week the number of subscribers to my YouTube channel topped 9,000. Most of the newer subscribers are not watching the old videos. By uploading updated videos to YouTube, viewers are introduced to some they might not otherwise watch, and some of those are among my best recipes.
Pandoro
This week's feature recipe is Pandoro, which is kind of halfway between a cake and a loaf of bread. It is slightly sweet, flavored with lemon zest, and baked in a mold like a cake. However, the leavening is yeast and it goes through several rises like bread. The texture if very delicate and light.
To be honest, the video is a mess. The project was initially given to me as a challenge. I think the challenge might have been to make a Pandoro that looks as good as those sold in stores around Christmas. My first attempt was a disaster.
I wrote to a friend who is from Italy. She said homemade Pandoro never looks as good as the commercial ones. The factories have different equipment and ingredients, etc. So I challenged myself to make the best looking Pandoro possible.
Well, yes, I did it, but what a lot of work! No one would ever attempt what I did. I'm reminded of my ridiculous effort to make a perfect Gâteau Paris-Brest, which is a beautiful pastry ring that represents a bicycle wheel, commemorating the bicycle race between Paris and Brest in France around the 1900s. If I remember correctly, I attempted the pastry 14 times, using up 60 eggs, before I finally got what I wanted. The video was so long, I divided it into Parts 1 and 2. You'd never attempt it, but I proved it could be done.
I can say the same for the Pandoro. I did it, but you'd be better off buying one in a store. As my Italian friend said, "It's fun to try once, then you'll always buy it in a store." See the recipe page for the successful photograph.
And, Finally, My Birthday
I turned 65 on Thursday. I did nothing special, other than walk up to a neighbor's home and tell him to wish me a goddam happy birthday. (I've liked the word goddam ever since I heard Walter Matthau use it in a movie.) My neighbor and I had a good laugh. He has an excellent sense of humor.
I don't do birthday presents. And for that reason I never told anyone here about the day. I did go buy something. I drove to the Home Depot gardening department and bought three herb plants. The plan is to have a little herb garden in pots along one side of my home. I already have some empty ceramic pots. And that was my day. No cake and ice cream. No singing Happy Birthday. Just quiet, relaxed, simple, and a little recreational gardening.
The herbs are a beginning. These are the herbs so far — oregano, thyme, and rosemary. I'll buy a few more tomorrow. Eventually, I'd like to fill an area with 10 to 15 pots of herbs. Maybe more, if it becomes an obsession.
Wednesday 2016.7.27
Feel Free…
Feel free to wish me a Happy Birthday (and send me presents). Tomorrow I will be 65 years old. I can start taking advantage of discounts for the elderly. I think I can ride the bus for half price, and can I eat at Denny's for less? — neither of which I ever do.
I feel good about my age. 50 was horrible. I had changed jobs and then there was the terrorist attack on September 11th that year. 65 is fine. I've made it this far and my health continues to be good, even though there has always been a nagging doubt in the back of my mind. On my mother's side of the family almost no one lived to see retirement. Only my grandmother lived to see an old age — she passed away in her early 80s. On my father's side of the family everyone lives a very long time. His mother lived to be 93, and she smoked all her life. So far, I am practically a clone of my father, with one exception — he lost most of his hearing while relatively young. I still have good hearing.
I take no medications. I have my hearing. Like my father, I struggle with weight, going up and down like a yo-yo, which I know is not good. My doctor says I'll live to be 100. And my dentist thinks I'll probably keep all my teeth (both my parents had dentures because dental hygiene wasn't good 75 years ago). I don't worry a lot about my future.
Windows Anniversary
In case you hadn't heard yet, Windows 10 will enjoy its first anniversary next month. Microsoft will be rolling out a special Anniversary Update (AU), loading it onto our computers (those with Windows 10) during the first week of August. There will be some added features, some of which I know a little about. One of my computers is a Surface 3 tablet/computer. It shipped with a stylus and the AU will have a drawing program. Don't expect something as sophisticated as Adobe Illustrator. Preliminary reports say it is very rudimentary, but if you don't have Illustrator it will give you an additional use for your stylus.
And speaking of Windows 10, time is running out for the free upgrade. I don't know all the facts, but I believe computers running Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 (not XP or earlier) are eligible for a free upgrade to Windows 10. When I built two new computers last year, I had to buy two packages of Windows 10, at $199 each. So a free upgrade is well worth it. The upgrade is simple, too.
Some existing features, like the Cortana search utility, are being enhanced. I haven't used Cortana in a very long time. Maybe I'll experiment with it again. If I remember correctly, I used to be able to speak to my laptop. "Cortana, open the firewall" and a window would pop up showing me where to change my computer's firewall settings. (The firewall is where you control the traffic into and out of your computer. So, let's just say someone wants to watch movies of a certain genre, wink wink hint hint say no more, and they don't want that being reported back to some server somewhere to be used for targeting advertisements. They can block all traffic related to their movie viewer.)
I do watch movies on my laptop, but they're the general release stuff that you see in theaters. Recently I watched Ted. I'm not a big Mark Wahlberg fan. I don't dislike him, but if I had to choose between him or Judi Dench, I'd go with Dench. Ted surprised me. A guy talking to his teddy bear? Really? But when I saw that it was written by Seth MacFarlane, the genius behind the TV series, Family Guy, I had to watch. I was laughing so hard at times I had to pause the movie.
And Then There Were Two
So now we have only two candidates left in the race for President, one on each side. I watched parts of the Republican convention. There wasn't much to it. On the Democratic side, there were so many speakers it was difficult to sort them all out.
One commentator put words to what I felt. He said the Republican Convention wasn't a happy convention. The Democratic Convention, with the exception of some of the Bernie Sanders supporters and apology on the first day, was a happy convention. The polls after the Republican convention showed Trump not getting any bump in popularity afterward. It wasn't a convention that inspired popularity. Later this week we should see whether or not Clinton gets a bump. Neither candidate is well like by the electorate. If anything can be said, this is the first election cycle in which neither candidate is well liked.
The polls between now and November will be worth watching. I normally don't put much stock in polls. They are often wrong. But they might be important as the election nears. If both candidates are running neck and neck, any Democratic vote for a different candidate, such as for the Green Party candidate Jill Stein, might be a vote for Trump. If Clinton has 60% popularity compared to Trump's 40%, the 1 or 2 percent who vote for an alternate candidate won't have any affect. Those votes won't change the outcome of the election. It's when they're running 50-50 that every vote becomes important. 50% for Trump and 49% for Clinton, with 1% voting for Stein, is a win for Trump.
Soup in Summer?
I normally eat a lot of soups in winter, not in summer. But sometimes I need to work down the foods I have in the freezer. Several months ago I made Duck Meat Ravioli. I've had several pieces stored in a little ziplock bag in my freezer. I also wanted to use up some Homemade Chicken Stock; so it was time. Even though it is still July, and warm, I made the soup and added some mixed vegetables like I do with my Homemade Chicken Soup. It was good, but I wouldn't write it up as a recipe or do a video. It's more of a soup made of leftovers — economical and nutritious, but not something I'd serve with pride. It tasted good though.
And, Finally, Some Vindication
You might remember my being a member of a weight-loss support group several months ago. I quit after a few meetings because the organizer used the gatherings to promote his favorite dietary supplements. If the dietary supplements industry ever needed a poster child, he'd be their guy.
In the September issue of Consumer Reports (going on sale today) they write extensively about the lack of FDA oversight of the dietary supplements industry. Briefly, the manufacturers can put almost anything they want in their products, they don't need to have them tested for safety and efficacy, and they don't need to list the ingredients on the label.
I had my first exposure to the dangers of dietary supplements back in the early 1990s when I worked in college sports. The National Collegiate Athetics Associaion (NCAA) reported some athletes being banned from sports because of failing drugs tests. In one case, a track athlete was involved. When questioned, he said he was taking no performance-enhancing drugs, only a "safe" dietary supplement. The product, made in China, was tested and proved to be filled with banned steroids.
In another example, many years ago someone spent $8 on a 16-ounce bottle of "liquid aminos" to give me as a gift. I have a decent sense of taste and smell. The product was only soy sauce, available at the time for $1.99 per gallon.
Among the potential dangers listed by Consumer Reports are: negative side effects such as headaches are heart palpitations, heart attack, organ failure, and death. I rest my case.
Sunday 2016.7.24
Recipes I Won't Attempt
It's no secret that some of the recipes I feature on this web site and in my videos come from restaurant trade journals (magazines that only go to restaurants). I usually list my source(s) at the top of the recipe. I often research many recipes from books, magazines, and the Internet, cherry-picking the ingredients I like best. Sometimes I do my own substitutions — if a recipe says ¼ cup of water, I think about wine or juice instead because they add more flavor.
I recently saw a recipe for "Texas Twinkies" in a trade journal. They are not Hostess Twinkies slathered with barbecue sauce and then grilled (which might not be a bad idea in a trailer park). They are jalapeño peppers, cleaned of seeds and membranes, and then stuffed with brisket and cheese, then wrapped with bacon before cooking. (Actually, they don't sound much worse than barbecued Hostess Twinkies.)
I do have my limits. Jalapeño peppers are one of them.
How about "Smoked Lamb Belly and Arugula on Flatbread"? I love lamb, but finding belly meat would be challenging in this town. Why not use leg meat? However, arugula is another of my limits. I don't like bitter flavors.
I can be adventuresome. My Oxtail Stew recipe was an adventure. Adventures like that are like climbing Mt. Everest or swimming the English Channel. Having done it, you probably won't attempt it again.
I've been seeing packages of pork belly in Costco. They look like slabs of unsliced bacon — lots of fat. A friend has been trying to convince me to make my own pancetta. There are two problems with that. The curing and aging requires careful handling and the right chemicals. And I should have a need for pancetta. I use it in a recipe maybe once a year. It isn't too expensive to buy when I need it.
I should probably also mention this is the same guy who wanted me to attempt something with Kobe Wagyu beef ($350 per pound, $470 per half pound for the filet mignon), then it was saddle of lamb, then ortolan (if we could get it surreptitiously — it's illegal here), then whole goat, among other things.
He reminds me of a former friend who would try to talk me into building computers with the most expensive parts so that he could see how well they work when playing games. He would have heart palpitations if he knew I now have two computers that cost me $6,000 to build, each.
To be honest, I'm more of a pepperoni pizza kind of guy. I recently made pandoro again, a kind of sweet baked thing that is halfway between a bread and a cake. I ate one slice, dipping it in coffee, and gave all the remainder of it to a neighbor to bring to his girlfriend. That recipe will eventually make it onto my we site.
My recent experiment with Clam Fritters was okay. I proved I could make them with baking powder rather than yeast, if I use eggs in the batter. But that was another adventure I would attempt only once. I love my New England Clam Cakes, made with yeast. I make them several times each year, and I might go shopping for the ingredients to make them again soon. They are among my favorites, but not with the YouTube fans — 422 views with 3 dislikes, compared to 1,240 views and no dislikes for my Onion Rings video, so far. It's also no secret that I don't do recipes and videos to get accolades from fans. I do projects that interest or intrigue me. The videos give the audience an opportunity to join me, albeit vicariously, in my adventure.
And as for this week's feature recipe, Salmon Jerky, that was one of my planned remakes. The original video was shot nearly six years ago, before I had a counter that allowed me to face the camera. A friend held the camera, shooting from behind me around my side or over my shoulder. Although popular, it is one of my worst videos. After uploading the new video to YouTube today, I removed the old one. (Hopefully I didn't break any external links to it.)
Happily Cool
It has been unseasonably warm here. 98°F (37°C) might not seem hot to those who live in warmer parts of the country, but here along the Southern California coast it has been too warm for comfort. Yesterday was a little better, but not by much.
I might have mentioned in an earlier blog that I moved my portable air conditioner into my home office to help keep my computers cool. It has been working well enough. Yesterday the temperature outside reached 94°F (34°C), but the temperature outside my computer stayed around 75°F (24°C). That works for me.
Another Type of Meeting
In the past I blogged about attending a World News Discussion Group. I enjoyed it, but I felt burnt out after a while and the posture of the meetings changed. Now they are the Liberal Democrats Discussion Group. I don't like excluding anyone. The change was because the organizer, who has self-confidence issues, is insecure about Hillary Clinton winning the election. When Bernie Sanders was in the race, the organizer was very upset when Sanders won any state primary. I had to remind him Clinton was still on track to be the clear winner of her party's nomination. I'm sure he is now fretting about the election in November. I'm glad to be free of those meetings. I feel like I successfully escaped.
On Friday evening I attended a new meeting for YouTube Creators. It was interesting. I think once the group gets beyond their own egos — everyone, including me, wanted to talk about their own successes — we might get down to the nuts and bolts of making meaningful improvements to our YouTube channels. I already benefitted. Rather than my channel being www.youtube.com/RandomAlphanumericString it is www.youtube.com/c/MobileHomeGourmet.
Wednesday 2016.7.20
Tuckered
When I started working on my home's landscaping last year, I had a vision of putting large planters with trees in my yard. Smaller pots would be used for herbs and flowering plants. A few weeks ago someone gave me five citrus trees. She and her husband were moving to Florida and it is illegal to transport plants into the state. She gave her trees to me. They were in five-gallon buckets.
I bought one planter, which cost more than $100. Then, someone here in the park told me he had four empty planters, still new in plastic wrap, he did not want. He was thinking of putting them out in front of his home with a sign saying "Free" on them. He gave them to me. They're not as decorative as I would have liked, but they were free.
Yesterday I did the potting. It took a few hours, and I was exhausted afterward, but I am very satisfied with the results.
From the labels on the trees, I have one each of lemon, Meyer lemon, orange, dwarf orange, and lime. The trees have a few flowers on them; so they'll bear fruit soon. That shaded wall behind the two planters to the right is where I want to eventually arrange some potted herbs.
The tree to the far left is a ficus I placed there a few years ago to stop people from driving over my yard — I live on a corner space. It was amusing to watch residents when the tree was first placed there. They tried to cut the corner sharply and had to swerve to avoid the tree. No one does that anymore.
As an interesting side note, one of my neighbors saw me working outside yesterday and brought me a bowl of macaroni with beef ragù. I recognized it immediately as similar to my Mom's American Chop Suey. I asked her what she calls it. "Goulash." That seems to be the most popular name for it in the United States. In New England it is commonly called American Chop Suey.
Republican Convention
I've been watching the convention. Yesterday was a somewhat amusing roll call to nominate their candidate. I don't know why they asked for each state's vote count. The rules of the convention don't respect those votes. A state can announce six votes for Trump, six for Kasich, and six for Rubio. However, the convention records 18 votes for Trump. Period. So why ask?
Trump was nominated. No surprise there. No one will be surprised when Hillary Clinton is nominated at the Democratic convention next week. The November election is really the only important event remaining in this campaign cycle. I doubt I will watch any of the debates.
Electricity
The trailer park did some upgrades to several electrical panels outside the mobile homes. Mine was one that got an upgrade. It only took about 20 minutes, but when the electrician turned on the power the circuit breakers outside popped off. Uh-oh.
Kind of a complicated story. There are two black leads going into my home. Those wires are designated as "hot." There is white "neutral" through which the electrical current goes back out. And there is the usual green "ground" wire. However, there was only one electrical supply coming from the hookup pillar outside.
So, to get current to the other side of my home, someone — probably the initial installer — bridged from one black hot to the other with a thick jumper wire. After the electrician added a second supply and circuit breaker to feed current to both black wires, the jumper shorted the circuit, thus popping the circuit breaker.
It was an easy fix. Just remove the jumper. But it was an amusing adventure and, once again, I am thankful I never had a fire caused by the electricity. Some installers do some risky, and not approved according to code, wiring to get a job done and get out quickly.
One Million
One final achievement worth mentioning: Yesterday my YouTube channel reached 1,000,000 views. Normally I would celebrate a milestone like that, but I couldn't think of anything I wanted to do. I was probably too tired from planting trees.
And, Finally, the Evidence
I've complained in the past how I might plant $100 of Dymondia in my yard, only to go outside the following day and see most of it dug up during the night. Most people say it's the cats. I insist it is racoons. They are easy to defeat. No poisons. No repellents. I simply cover the planted area with chicken fencing and leave it there for a few months to let the Dymondia become fully established. When it is deeply rooted, the racoons can't dig it up. Yesterday I found my proof at last, an obvious muddy paw print on one of the stone. It's a racoon, not a cat.
Sunday 2016.7.17
A Terrible Tour Day
Thursday was the worst day I've ever seen in the Tour de France. The short details:
The finish line was moved 6km down the mountain because the winds at the top were too dangerous. The crowds, always out of control, were even worse because they all compressed down the mountain, filling the narrow road. Within the last kilometer, a motorbike (moto) came to a full stop because of the crowd. Richie Porte collided with the moto. More bikes crashed. The race leader, Chris Froome, was caught in the mayhem, his bike frame broken by another colliding moto. Ultimately, he was given a replacement bike to ride across the finish line. The results had to be reviewed by the Tour organizers jury.
My opinion, for what it might be worth:
I've always disliked the crowds in the Tour. I often mute my TV because hearing their screaming is intolerable. The problem is that the crowds want to be on TV. They are more interested in themselves than in the race. As one person said, it's like a Mardi Gras for them. They wear silly costumes and wigs. They carry banners. They ignore the police. They make fools of themselves. More than once a rider hit out and walloped a fan who got in the way. And more than once a fan stepped into the road for a better view or to take a selfie and caused a collision, bikes and cyclists hitting the pavement. I think it's cruel. It's a race, not a carnival.
The crowds are a welcome part of the race. When they interviewed some of the cyclists, they said the motos are not the problem; it's the crowds. They like reasonable fans because they make the race exciting. But every year the crowds get more and more out of control. They're not allowed on the raceway in Nascar. They keep the people off the roads in the Formula 1 Grand Priz in Monaco. Why are they allowed to get so close to the cyclists in the Tour de France?
If I were king, I would organize a boycott among the teams until something is done to control the crowds. I would close the narrow roads to fans. Days before the stage I would have the police patrol the road, making people leave or penalize them with stiff fines if they refuse. Let the crowds gather on wide roads, but no crowds on narrow, dangerous roads. Allow crowds at the finish line, but keep them behind the barriers.
I also think the camera operators should be told to focus on the riders. Often they turn their cameras onto the crowds. If people never got onto TV, maybe they'd stop trying.
To the organizers' credit, they gave the fallen athletes the times they had achieved before the collision, restoring the yellow jersey to the Tour leader, Chris Froome. And, to the country's credit, if I heard correctly, they put an additional 1,500 police officers on duty in the Tour after the previous day's embarrassment.
Time Trial
Friday was one of the sane racing days I really enjoy in the Tour — the Time Trial. The cyclists are not released all at once to race each other. They are sent out onto the course one at a time, two minutes apart (and later three minutes as the better time trialists enter the course) and they race against the clock. As such, they still compete against each other, and a good time trialist can gain a significant time advantage over his rivals, but the race is a lot safer.
Additionally, and I can't remember if I ever saw this before, as each rider went out onto the course, two police officers on motorcycles rode well ahead of them to help keep spectators off the road.
The Future of the Tour?
I don't know how the Tour de France might change in the future. I really think more respect needs to be given to the athletes. It's their race, not a party for the spectators. There should be ways to allow them to enjoy watching the race, but be kept at a safe distance away from the competitors, like you see in all other sports.
Name a sport — football, soccer, ice hockey, swimming and diving, track and field, auto racing, gymnastics, figure skating, name them all — the spectators have their place and they don't complain about watching the competition from that place. But in the Tour de France they are allowed too close to the athletes and now there are too many spectators on the roads to guarantee safety. I heard one spectator died this year when hit by a motorbike in the Tour. That's the fault of the organizers. Better efforts are needed to keep the spectators and the athletes safe.
Meanwhile, No Shortage of News
I normally dislike all the commercials during the Tour broadcast, but on Friday they gave me an opportunity to switch over to a news channel to learn more about the attack in Nice, France, and then the failed military coup in Turkey.
Meanwhile, yesterday's stage was won by Mark Cavendish. Marcel Kittel protested, but the stage results remained unchanged.
Wednesday 2016.7.13
Chorizo Sausages
When I first became interested in making my own sausages at home, one of my goals was to make Chorizo Sausages because I saw Clarissa Dickson Wright use them in an episode of the BBC cooking show series Two Fat Ladies. It became more of a challenge than a goal.
I have three sausage books. They give plenty of information about how to make sausages, as well as providing many guidelines for the safe handling, storing, and cooking of sausages. Naturally, the books also have plenty of recipes. Only one of the books has an actual recipe for chorizo sausages. The others discuss chorizo more as the highly seasoned and finely ground meat paste common in the grocery stores here in Southern California and give recipes that incorporate it.
Research was necessary, and I learned quite a lot of useful information.
First, pronunciation. When I uploaded my Chaurice video to YouTube, someone tried to correct me on the pronunciation of chorizo, mentioned in the video. She said it is pronounced sho•REE•zo. I don't mind corrections. My videos are intended to be educational; so any useful extra information is welcome. However, uninformed opinions are not.
I have two food encyclopedias. Two pronunciations are correct: chor•EE•zoh and chor•EE•soh. I also checked on the Internet. There are some very helpful pronunciation web sites. Try Googling "pronunciation chorizo" and see what comes up. Some even have sound clips that let you hear how the word is pronounced. One site had sound clips for both Spanish and English pronunciation. They were the same — chor•EE•zoh. So, I deleted the pronunciation comment from the Chaurice video.
I also learned that there are three main varieties of chorizo. There is the seasoned meat paste mentioned above, and there are also sausages, common in Spain. The sausages are sold as either cured, ready to eat, or fresh, requiring cooking.
Another interesting bit of trivia is that the hot sausages are tied with red string and the mild ones with white string. When I mentioned this to my friend from Italy, she said chorizo is not common in Italy (they have their own versions of spicy sausages), but the Italians also use the practice of red and white strings.
And another less interesting piece of information said the chorizo sold in stores here, although labeled as either pork or beef, are not made with the better parts of the animal. Animal by-products such as glands and lips are used.
The cured chorizo sausages require special chemicals and careful handling to make them safe for consumption. Some are air cured; some are smoked. As such, they are difficult to make and not recommended. Although I would like to learn more about curing sausages, I don't plan to attempt that endeavor anytime soon. I live in a mobile home in a trailer park. Where would I smoke or air dry sausages?
Getting back to the research, I also looked on the Internet for chorizo sausage recipes. There are not many, but I found enough. Combining what I learned, I came up with a recipe of my own. This is acceptable because there are many variations of seasoning mixtures. They can differ from region to region, town to town, even kitchen to kitchen. As one of my YouTube fans in Australia says, "There are as many variations as cats have hairs." Well said.
On Monday I made the sausages, shooting the video along the way. One point comes to mind. After I season the ground meat and let it rest in the refrigerator for an hour or two, I usually cook a small dab of the mixture to taste for salt. The salt was fine, but not the spiciness. I normally don't like spicy foods, but chorizo needs spice. I don't like hot spice, but I do enjoy a lot of mild spice. So I added adjusted the recipe from 2 to 3 tablespoons of chili powder. That finished the flavor nicely.
On the down side, there was way too much liquid in the mixture, even though I cut it back a little. The sausages were oozing liquid. It made for a nice shiny photograph, but they were messy. To solve this problems, I placed them on several layers of paper towels, put more towels on top, and wrapped them in plastic before storing in the refrigerator. A few hours later I changed the towels. The first set were soaked, but the second set remained relatively dry.
The liquid was dry sherry and vinegar. With the liquid went some of the salt. Oh well. I'll adjust the recipe before uploading it here, which won't be for a few months probably. I have too many other projects scheduled in advance of it. In fact, even though it is summer here, I wore a flannel shirt in the video, expecting the upload could be in October. (Astute viewers will see "July" on the calendar behind me.) In the schedule is a new video for Mom's Christmas Cookies, which I will probably shoot this summer as well.
The sausages? Delicious.
There is one more advantage, beside the flavor. As alluded to above, these are made with pure pork butt (shoulder) meat and fat, no by-products. I kept a few for myself and shared the others with two of my neighbors, both of whom enjoy spicy foods.
My Cervélo
A friend of mine said to me last week: "I'm surprised you haven't photographed your bike yet." So, okay, here is the street racing bike I bought from my neighbor for only $600 a few weeks ago. (I removed the photograph after he bought his bike back from me.)
I learned something new about the Garmin GPS cycling computer on it. After a ride, it will display a little map of the route I rode. I went for a short casual ride yesterday and as I was trying to figure out how to turn off the computer after my ride I saw the little map. It certainly isn't Google HD, but it was cool to see the route. It looked accurate.
And, Speaking of Bicycles…
The Tour de France has shown a few surprises. Yesterday Chris Froome, among the strongest climbers in the mountains, raced down a mountain road approaching speeds at more than 50 miles per hour, and today he shot to the front of the race and sped to the finish line with Peter Sagan, one of the world's best sprinters. Froome is not a sprinter, but he finished right behind Sagan. It was a startling finish today because Froome is normally considered a very calculated, formulaic rider. Not the last two days.
Sunday 2016.7.10
A Quiet Week
The week was quiet here. Other than experimenting a little with chicken drumsticks (which didn't result in anything I would video and add as a recipe), I did almost no cooking. I have plenty of Minute Meal portions in the freezer; so there was no concern about feeding myself.
There was also very little in the way of new ideas. Someone sent me a recipe for stuffed zucchini. I'm not a big fan of zucchini. I love eggplant, if it is prepared the way I like it, which is fried and then incorporated into something. My Eggplant Parmesan has been a favorite for years. That is one of my first recipes, done more than six years ago. I wouldn't mind doing a new video of that dish. I haven't looked at the video, but the photographs indicate that I videoed the recipe before I had the counter that allowed me to face the camera. I'll put this one on my list of videos to shoot again.
Approaching 1,000,000
The most anticipated milestone on my YouTube channel right now is one million views. I'm getting about 700 views per day. It's a rough estimate, but I think I'll reach a million in ten days. I don't have much data, so that is a really rough estimate. But it's worth watching.
One of the YouTube fans suggested I start a new channel just for sausages. I'd like that; however, there aren't many sausage recipes unless I get into curing and drying, which is kind of risky. Could I safely hang sausages to cure in my shed? Do I need a more controlled drying environment? I'm willing to do the research, but I know there are risks involved, along with chemicals to purchase.
One of my personal challenges is to make chorizo sausages. Here in Southern California chorizo is sold as a finely ground, highly spiced meat paste, packaged and sold in plastic tubes. One concern is that the "meat" is not from the best parts of the animal, but is "meat by-products" such as lips and glands. Think of American hot dogs or frankfurters.
In "The Cambridge Eight" episode of the BBC cooking series Two Fat Ladies the late Clarissa Dickson Wright used raw chorizo sausages, among others, in a Spanish bean soup. The sausages looked more dried than fresh, but I want to make them fresh. They also looked like they were made by a proper meat monger in a butcher shop rather than a factory. They were tied at the ends with string. With that in mind, this morning I moved a packet of cubed pork butt from the freezer to the refrigerator to thaw.
The Tour
I continue to watch the Tour de France cycling race each day, although I am not getting out of bed at 4:30 in the morning to watch each stage live. I wake up early enough to watch the last hour or two live, then I catch the highlights later in the day.
Every once in a while something highly unusual happens. A few years ago a team bus became lodged beneath the steel gantry at the finish line of the race with the cyclists only a few miles away. There was confusion. Would they move the finish three kilometers up the road? Finally, minutes before the cyclists arrived, the bus was removed and the athletes finished the stage normally. However, the mishap knocked out the timing electronics; so everyone was given the same time that day.
This year the 1-kilometer archway, which is one of those inflated things similar to the kids bouncy castles you see at some fairs, suddenly collapsed just as a rider was approaching. It dropped like a stone. The cyclist hit it and fell over it onto the road, taking most of the injury to his chin as he landed on the pavement. He was stitched up and in the race the following day. The cyclists that arrived seconds later lifted their bike and carried it over the fallen arch so that they could continue on the other side. The bicycles are so light, they could easily maneuver it with one hand as they climbed over the obstruction in their way. They were all given the times they recorded three kilometers before the end of the stage.
Yesterday's stage made history for the tour. It was the first time all 198 cyclists were still in the tour on the eighth stage. However, the first of the withdrawals happened later in the day as one athlete, with an injury to his thigh, withdrew. In today's stage Alberto Contador withdrew. He had suffered injuries on the first and second day, but withdrew today because of a worsening fever. Chris Froome is still the favorite to win, but Nairo Quintana is only seconds behind. Some years the Tour is won by minutes; sometimes it is won by only a few seconds. So far, this year's Tour is shaping up to be a close one. Tomorrow is a rest day.
Wednesday 2016.7.6
An Amusing Mistake
I received a somewhat disturbing comment — actually more of a question — on my Chaurice video upload earlier this week. "Did you use the garlic?" Uh-oh. Did I forget to include the garlic in the video? It happens. I try not to forget any ingredients. I use a trick I saw Julia Child use in a French Chef video. She put all her ingredients on a tray and removed them as she used them. If the tray is empty at the end, nothing was forgotten.
I thought of shooting the entire Chaurice video again. Then, lying in bed (where I sometimes get my best ideas) I thought I could get away with just shooting the one clip in which I mix the seasonings in a bowl. I could add the garlic this time and then just work the clip into the original video, deleting the error clip, and then encode a new video for YouTube.
I opened the video project on my computer to check which shirt and apron I was wearing so that I could make everything look the same. But there was the garlic. I had used it after all. There was no error to fix. Phew!
So why all the confusion? I'll blame it on getting old, but really, while I was finishing and uploading the Chaurice video I was working on the video for Tuscan Sausages (look for it in future weeks), which does not use any garlic, and I was planning a video for Chorizo Sausages. That's too many sausages. They get all mixed up in my head.
So, bottom line, there is nothing wrong with the Chaurice video and recipe. And I am especially relieved that I didn't shoot the pick-up clip, tossing the bowl of seasoning ingredients in the trash afterward, only to find out when editing that the original was fine.
More Tour de France
I'll probably blog a lot about the Tour during the next couple of weeks. I'm not getting up extra early every morning to watch the entire live broadcast. Really, the last hour is enough. I only need to see who wins. I can watch the rebroadcast and highlights later.
One morning the sprint at the end of the stage was so close, neither Mark Cavendish nor André Greipel knew for sure which had won. The photo of the finish showed that Cavendish won, literally by the thickness of a tire.
Then, again, yesterday morning the finish was so close that only a photograph could prove who won. It was Marcel Kittel, this time by less than the thickness of a tire. They determined he won by 28mm, slightly more than 1 inch.
There was also some discussion about ways to make the race safer. The sprinters don't like the GC (generalized category) cyclists crowding the road when they are lining up for their sprint, but Chris Froome, one of the GC cyclists, explained that the rules make it necessary because the Tour can be lost by seconds. They can't hang back and lose precious seconds.
There is a "one second" rule, if I understand it correctly. Everyone that crosses over the finish line in the first second is given the same time. So the GC guys want to be in that first group. Changing the rule to five seconds would allow them to hang back a little, allowing room for the sprinters, but still keep their valuable times.
It's an interesting debate. I think the race could also be made safer if the organizers chose safer roads — wide and without roundabouts and center islands — for the cyclists to race on. Alberto Contador suffered a painful injury when he miscalculated a turn because of a road island. There are too many obstacles for the riders to avoid. The Tour of California race is mostly on wide roads without hazards and there are very few crashes during the eight days of racing. I'm sure there must be several safe roads in France.
There was also some discussion asking if the daily stages should be made shorter. Some think so. But I don't see that ever happening. It's a commercial event. Sport is an industry, driven by profit. Use a stopwatch during an hour of Tour de France coverage and you'll see there are about 34½ minutes of program and 25½ minutes, nearly half the hour, of commercials. In addition to the commercials, the commentators talk about France's castles, chateaus, and cathedrals along each stage, promoting French tourism, and cycling products like water bottles, helmets, bicycle parts, etc. Shortening the time of each stage would seriously cut into the commercial minutes.
If I were king, I would insist the race organizers do better crowd control. There are times when they block the road in front of the cyclists, making it difficult for them to see how to navigate the obstacles and curves. I understand the enthusiasm. The spectators want to get close to the cyclists, but some wear silly costumes, trying to get into the camera image.
As for me, I won't be riding a bike for a while. I don't know what I was dreaming last night. Whatever it was, it was enough to cause me to twist in my sleep and sprain my back. I can barely get out of a chair, let alone get onto a bike. Been there, done that, several times. It will be fully healed in a week or so. If anything, it's a good excuse to open a bottle of wine. A little alcohol is an excellent muscle relaxant.
Sunday 2016.7.3
Cheap Fix
Mistakes happen. We're all human. This past week I was shooting a replacement video for my Clam Chowder recipe. I spilled something on the floor and to help see better as I cleaned up the mess I turned on the overhead fluorescent kitchen light. Then I forgot to turn it off.
When I shot the next clip — chopping the onion — I thought it was odd that I needed to adjust my camera's aperture because the lighting was too bright. I didn't make the connection with the overhead light. For the next clip, I realized my mistake. I was hoping to save the video; so as I chopped the potato — now under normal video lighting — I mentioned the incorrect lighting in the onion clip, explaining where I went wrong.
Later in the evening I edited the video. The onion clip color was all wrong. I could have left it, but this was to be a replacement video, improving on the older one. I couldn't allow it to look worse. And how much is an onion and a potato? (I needed to replace the potato clip too because in it I talked about the bad lighting in the onion clip.) I walked down to Smart & Final and bought them for a total of 99¢. Thankfully I didn't make a mistake with sea scallops, which sell for $24 per pound at the seafood market, because the chopped onion and potato went directly into the trash after I shot the clip. I don't like wasting food, but I didn't need them.
One of the benefits of having done more than 250 videos is that I've learned how to get away with fixes. In some videos a small portion of my narrative might have been recorded later, maybe on another day, and then edited in to cover a mistake. I might say "four cups" when I meant to say "two cups."
The hardest fixes are those that also have a background sound, such as onions frying in a skillet. It's obvious if I say "eight ounces" while showing the skillet, but there is no sound of cooking. I need to find a piece of frying sound without my voice in it and then combine the two. I've gotten pretty good at fixing most of those errors.
Tuscan Sausages
Making sausages at home is one of the most enjoyable activities I can think of doing in the kitchen. I really enjoy making sausages, and I'm happy that I bought a really good meat grinder / sausage stuffer attachment rather than the cheap plastic Kitchenaid product. It was expensive, yes, but "buy cheap, buy twice." This attachment should last at least as long as my Kitchenaid, if not a lot longer.
If you're wondering what I bought — it is a Smokehouse Chef brand, all stainless steel, and available on Amazon and the SmokehouseChef.com web site. Compare prices; as I said, they're expensive.
Another reason why I made sausages on Friday, July 1st, is that it is a day to celebrate — the fifth anniversary of my retirement. I haven't worked a day in five years and, because I get a good pension, they are still paying me every month. With my pension and my Social Security benefit, I am taking home more money each month now than I did when I had a job.
As for the Tuscan Sausages, two features of the recipe interested me: The book said the sausage flavor is more Northern Italy, influenced by the cuisine of Europe, rather than the food of Southern Italy, influenced by Northern Africa across the Mediterranean Sea. That means more herbs and no spicy hot chili powder or red pepper. The other feature is the inclusion of some chopped sun-dried tomatoes and a few anchovie fillets, which should make them even more delicious.
They are surprisingly melt-in-your-mouth tender. I must have achieved the correct balance of meat and fat.
For the final plating in the video I wanted to do more than simply cooked sausages on a plate. So I cooked up some linguine and heated some of my marinara sauce. However, I can never make pasta look good on a plate. The chefs on TV have a knack for twirling the pasta on the plate. I've tried, but I'm not good at it.
Now here's a trick I experimented with: I have a turntable in my microwave oven. What if I were to put the turntable plate and its roller assembly on the counter, set my plate on that, and twirl the plate while placing pasta on it? It works. The pasta was piled neatly on the plate.
The Tour
Yesterday was the first stage of the Tour de France cycling race this summer. I rarely watch it live on TV because the broadcast starts at 3:00 in the morning here. But I was up. I set my alarm. I went to bed early. I tried to get enough sleep.
I stayed awake, mostly. I was so tired at times, I closed my eyes during commericals. My way of checking to determine if I slept a little was to ask myself if I knew what the commerical was about. A couple times I couldn't recall.
Was it worth it? Yes. Finally, Mark Cavendish won the sprint on the first day and therefore, for the first time in his career, he wears the yellow jersey the following day. He had two opportunities in recent years, but crashed both times before reaching the finish line. André Greipel caused one crash. Cavendish says he caused the other (and withdrew from the race with a broken collar bone), but I believe Fabien Cancellara caused it because, although he is not a sprinter, he tried for the win and broke up the order of the sprinters, which resulted in chaos and the crash.
The Tour is 21 days of racing. I won't wake up before dawn everyday, but I'll watch it live as often as I can. This morning was a little easier — coverage began at 4:30.