Monday, July 30, 2012

In Which There Are Pictures of Bloody Meat Chunks (and sort of a recipe)

So, have you ever been playing a game on your emulator during a cold rainy day off and thinking, "wow, time really flies when I'm on here -- hey, and it's a cold and rainy day off! This is the perfect combination of factors for me to cook that tough cut of lamb in the fridge!"

But then you realize there needs to be a good meaty broth if you're going to make braised lamb, and there's no good way to just rip off a hunk of hind shank and make a proper stock with it. You have a wide variety of beef chunks and whole and partial chickens in the freezer (being, you feel you must clarify, someone who recently purchased a lot of meat during a sale, rather than some sort of chiefly carnivorous werewolf-person), but you'd rather not dilute the (expensive) lamb flavor.

You also realize you don't have any vegetables to go with it (due to having used them up recently, rather than due to being a chiefly carnivorous werewolf-person), so while you're on your way to figure out the broth situation you decide to grab a can of artichokes because laziness.

And when you get to the store they actually have (cleverly hidden beneath a pile of lamb chops) exactly what you need for once, which is the cheapest lamb in the universe or at least in your state, and also coincidentally the perfect thing to make stock/stew with:



So you get to work with your sauteeing and your browning and you're wondering whether you even need to bother making stock separately, and also how the heck all of this is going to fit along with the lamb shank...


...which is after all quite sizable once unwrapped.


So you chop off the fat blobs where possible, and you chop of the ribby bits and decide they can be spared for stock while the rest browns:


And you go through the first part of the cooking process half-asleep because it's kind of late now to be cooking what with all the impromptu shopping trips in the rain and all, and because all of the stewed things start out the same way, brown the meat first and then soften the onions in the fat....


 along with any other crunchy things that can't just boil (a bunch of chopped fennel in this case), then add the major spices (just rosemary today) and then add the liquid and use it to dissolve the crispy burny meaty bits and then put the meat back in on top and add any wispy fresh stuff (like the fennel tops) and make sure the liquid's about halfway up or so and cover it with the lid.


And you also forget about the artichokes you went out in the rain to get until you're partway through the next step (which in the case of braised lamb is a little different and wakes you -- instead of just leaving it on the stovetop forever you have to put it in a medium oven for an hour or two, periodically pausing your game to pull the pan out with two oven mitts, half-throwing said pan onto the stovetop in a heat-fearing panic, opening it to stir, and then shoving it back into the hateful dragon's den that is your oven).


Then you return to your beloved stovetop to boil up the remaining stock and make the world's easiest grain-based side dish, couscous. 


And finally you add salt and pepper and forget to take a picture of the final product because you're ravenous and have been gnawing on the pathetic jumble of bones from the stock-pot while waiting for everything else to cook.
Not that you're a chiefly carnivorous werewolf-person or anything, it's just been a long time since lunch.

You've had days like that, right? 
Right?
Okay, well at least tell me whether I lost you at emulator or neck bones.

(also, it's really awesome when you've finished a slightly epic endeavor like this and then realize you have a fresh apricot in the fridge to eat afterward. Reheated, it's also good with a plop of plain/honey-flavored yogurt next to the couscous to cool any hot spots in the stew.)

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

In which the Midwest is an elemental minefield

Fire, ice, water, electricity, the sun -- pretty much the only thing that is particularly safe and reliable out here is the earth itself, which fortunately lacks the restlessness found in the more coastal chunks of continent.

It's been hot lately, record-breaking sort of hot, which at least rules out ice and water as assailants for the time being. Since our seasons often progress along the lines of Ice, Flood, Drought, and Mixture, or get stuck on one or two of the four for a year or so, this isn't  wildly surprising, just inconvenient. Which is good, since we don't have anything to talk about with strangers if the weather isn't bad.

In general, Drought isn't as tricky a season as Flood, since it usually subsides soon enough with nothing more than the occasional advisory and burn ban to remind us that this a particularly summer-y summer. It doesn't generally go all-out like in the truly dry places where your lawns are rocks and cactus, because at heart the whole cycle is eventually gearing toward its preferred status, Flood. Businesses in low-lying areas build on hills, build walls, or don't build at all. This is particularly true of my previous residence, where we would watch water creep into the parking lot and hope it didn't make it in this year. In 1993, 1996, 2008 and 2010 anyone too close to the ground was mercilessly weeded out of the area by rising waters. Childhood favorites like the pizza place, golf course, movie theater and bowling alley, all just a short walk from my old building, gave up the ghost one by one as they were washed out or simply realized that the water would not stop coming, not for long.

So in short, I'm used to sad spring stories from the lowlands about this, that and the other place literally going under. But I was surprised to see a familiar address, an old neighboring building, in the news now, with no water in sight. The apartments I sloshed past through the rivers of mud and God-knows-what-else in '96 had gone up in flames, none injured but little time to save anything else, a fire at 6AM in a building likely made with water in mind but ill-equipped for fire. I felt a faint twinge of irony at reports that the fire started in a boat....





Anyway, I know it's not Colorado's blaze or Japan's deluge, but it's home. It's hard to get over the fact that I used to live near hear, used to sneak shortcuts between buildings and windbreaks.



Walking around the charred walls I can see what's around the corner in my mind, a parking lot and a hill in the corner, steep but climbable, even without the steps, a place I found a dead frog once. All the chipmunks, far more than I see up north where I live now ... they're still there, cautious but curious and hopeful as ever for handouts. Friends of mine have lived here, some in this very building.




The thoughts of those for whom the memories are not of last decade or last year but of last week, those who have without exaggeration just lost the roof over their heads, I cannot imagine ... but I hope all have at least found a place to stay in the heat.

On a more upbeat note, my people (known as the Geeks) have a song we play for moral support on such occasions; please excuse if it is not to your taste, but we offer it in earnest. The words (while somewhat appropriate upon reflection for one whose land has burned and who suddenly has an unobstructed, if unwelcome, view of the sky) are known, so the music alone will suffice:

Sunday, July 8, 2012

In Which I Pretend to Review the Movie "Chance" But Mostly Babble While Listening to Mumford & Sons

{This is the babbly part}
So, I just now got around to watching the movie Chance.
You'd think I'd have done this quite a bit sooner, as it's directed, written and produced by Amber Benson and also includes James Marsters in the cast.
Thing is, aside from a couple minutes of YouTube clip I stumbled on months ago during one of my idle "how many clips of Marsters' giggle fits can we find?" marathons, there's not a whole lot about this movie readily available for those who aren't looking for it already.
It's not at the library, which is where I generally find my more-obscure movies, and even Amazon's over-eager "suggest everything with three words in common" recommendation engine never mentioned it to me. Sure, if you click on "CreateSpace" in the "Directed By" field to see their other works, you get a selection that from the titles appears evenly split between pornography and children's educational programming ... but still. Not relevant to the matter at hand, which is: At the very least, Tara and Spike are in this! I bought all seven seasons from you, Amazon, don't you pay any attention?

Anyhow.

I was doing a mini marathon of Joss Whedon's music in honor of his birthday in June, and I saw in his Soundtrack credits (along with The Lion King II, which I already had on my list) a song from a movie called "Chance."
"Why, wait," thought I, "isn't that the name of the one James Marsters was having a giggle fit in?"
I determined that it was, and that there were exactly two places I could find to purchase it. Being the cheapskate that I am (and having no idea whether I'd really like it), I decided to forgive Amazon's betrayal/failure in this department and purchase the digital version for $9.99 (which was really zero dollars since I still have a gift balance left from returning my textbooks).

The reason I didn't actually watch it for two more weeks was that I managed to scrape up just enough self-control to finish watching series 2 of Being Human and Sherlock (which I did get from the library and had to return soon) before starting in on this.

{I actually start talking about the movie here, with screencaps}