indoor bbq

ok juicy like it should be



watermellon.....


I have been doing this for years for many reasons the main one being I dont like the flavor of charcoal so I like to control the flavor of the smoke my food gets and the another one is I dont like to smell like 'fire' - dont ask it goes back to my childhood, but I can still get those unique outdoor flavors right inside my kitchen.

I have four boys visiting, well three are visiting and one lives here, so you might hear them in the background as I throw together some quick ribs as a snack. Tasty is the key word here! All together it took about an hour of cooking, mostly in the wok on a low simmer and then fired under the broiler. I love this barbeque more than most I have had.

philly

Well, well, well I get all ready to post up a storm and then get caught behind the 8 ball. Suddenly, well suddenly to me, I had to do all kinds of school stuff with the kid. Field trips, events and all sorts of 'little' things like playdates and whatevers. It isnt easy being 'alpha dad' well it is easy for me but it may not be easy for most. So off to Philly we go. Do people from philly call it philly? Is it the same as "frisco", because the only time I say I am going back to the 'big apple' is when I am far away and I am actually telling someone who is not from NYC thats where I am going? We do stay busy over here in doggyville, while it may not seem that way at a glance you have to get down to the nitty gritty to really 'feel' it.



They say Betsy Ross lived here but she had more than one husband in her life. Was this in her 'single' years?



I dont know who took this photo because as a "chaperone" I volunteered to wait outside with the backpacks. I've seen the Liberty Bell - it aint all its cracked up to be...LOL



How picture perfect.



"look, a colonialist"



"a penny saved is a penny earned" who said that?



They say George Washington was over 6 feet tall. Thats big for those days.

some days

I get so obsessed with having EXACTLY 365 posts that I hold back. I dont want to 'over post' plus I want to give everyone time to have a look. What do I do? I am not concerned with comment load as much as I do like comments. Ahhhh. I eat three meals everyday and cook more than that, but it is psychologically difficult to take a picture everytime, let alone make a video. I want to post a crepe 'how to' but that means someone has to eat them. What do I do?

memories

I hope everyone had a safe memorial day weekend. I live far away from my family now but when I was young my grandfather, who served in World War 1, traditionally would ask to be driven to the cemetary so he could tidy up the graves of his friends and loved ones. He was born in the late 1800's and was in his late teens/early twenties during the war. We had to get dressed up in our Sunday best and we quietly raked and weeded and cleaned grave sites, some of the people had names I could recognize but most were dead years and years before I was born. I called my parents yesterday and guess where they were? Yup. Tidying up the graves. I wore the straw hat that my Grandpa always wore on Sundays and special occasions, I remembered him and everyone else that has proudly served our country, he died when I was 26 he was 95.





On a different note we had tons of beef.



And hammock relaxation.

sushi rolls

I do these in like one take as fast as I can, imagine if I took my time and was concerned with neatness? You can add avocado, cucumber, scallions, carrots there is no limit and on the inside out rolls you can sprinkle seasoned salts or toasted white or black sesame seeds on the rice or use fish roe for a nice orange color and flavor/texture burst, have fun and experiment. Cook the salmon if you want, just enjoy. Look back I have made this before.







There is more than just rolls...this style with the fish on top is called Nigiri. The rolls are called Maki. There are three items that I know of that are not raw, the tamago-yaki or omelette, the ebi or shrimp (but not the ama ebi, the sweet shrimp) and the unagi or anago or fresh or saltwater eel - I usually recommend these to people who are squeamish.

EDIt

I like fat salmon....its the GRIZZLY in me... you put me near raw salmon and I eaT IT!

fancy food

What do most people like, fancy food or comfort food or comfort fancy food? Of course we want it to look good so then 'fancy' becomes subjective, of course we want it to taste good so then fancy has no purpose, of course we want quality and thats where fancy can share the stage with comfort. I think for most people its all of the above. I hop makes pancakes 'fancy', for example, and it works, they seem to taste better because they look better, put ice cream in anything called a 'terrine' and you feel fancy. I have a kid and he eats everything I offer him, he has friends who do not. His friends do not have the palate that my kid has because of their perceptions of what is 'fancy', you see to them I hop is the bomb but a crepe with honey and a mild chevre topped with fresh vanilla cream is not. Not that my kid is the Frank Bruni of kids because he is not it is more the point of learning to eat. I grew up eating anything that came from the farm and that included some funky cheese and goat parts that should have remained goat parts, plus the summer months of melons and tomatoes and cucumbers and all kinds of veggies galore (finally I get galore in there again) so I have no fear of food. Maybe this is a post about food fear? What about you? For a long while when I was young I did not eat squash (BUT I loved calabaza - google) because of its conjugations with 'squish' it sounded 'mushy' even though I did not know what it was. (turned out to be mushy after all) but I do like it now.

I guess I forgot to mention is that while I no longer live in the country, the country certainly lives in me. I like the exploration and I am thrilled and glad to have you with me.

Squash.... makes sense right? what if I offered you some vegetable called.......'broken'...some foul smelling green... and it actually tasted good, and in another language it was called 'creamy grass' or some word like 'pasto' and then it wasnt 'broken' anymore.... explain.

jokes

Useless in a fight

Into a Belfast pub comes Paddy Murphy, looking like
he'd just been run over by a train.
His arm is in a sling, his nose is broken, his face is
cut and bruised and he's walking with a limp.
"What happened to you?" asks Sean, the bartender.
"Jamie O'Conner and me had a fight," says Paddy.
"That little shit, O'Conner," says Sean, "He couldn't
do that to you, he must have had something in his
hand."
"That he did," says Paddy, "a shovel is what he had,
and a terrible lickin' he gave me with it."
"Well," says Sean, "you should have defended yourself,
didn't you have something in your hand?"
That I did," said Paddy. "Mrs. O'Conner's breast, and
a thing of beauty it was, but useless in a fight."

soup

This is my version of a classic. I like cashews usually but only had sunflower seeds. I roasted some tomatoes I roasted some red peppers and I sauteed them with garlic onions and a bay leaf in some extra virgin olive oil. Well roasted, sauteed and seasoned I added one small can of tomato sauce and some sunflower seeds and hit the whole thing with an immersion blender, totally blended I added some vegetable broth and a half a stick of butter, stirred and let this simmer for a bit. Served it with some toasty croutons and it was good to go. Omit the butter and this is vegan all the way. I dont always eat meat I just eat.

on a plate

This is how the chicken satay looked on a plate with a little peanut sauce. The peanut sauce is a little ingredient intensive. I used red onions, garlic, red peppers and ginger sauteed in peanut oil to which I added a splash of fish sauce, a splash of oyster sauce, a drizzle of rice wine vinegar a big drizzle of honey and a heaping tablespoon of peanut butter. I garnished with some red peppers and cilantro resulting in a peanuty, spicy and sweet salty condiment.

video head

I have been making these videos for a while now but it is only recently that I am somewhat pleased with the outcome. I have to deal with my own mortality and that invloves 'aging'. Yup you heard my vanity speaking, the Doggs getting older and it shows, to me at least. I have a whole bunch from my old sony handy cam from years ago but who wants to go through all that stuff again, plus it was before I could do things in 2 minutes...funny, funny ha ha. I used to record 27 minute 'programs' with the three minutes left over for 'breaks'. Try to imagine 27 minutes of making spring rolls, boy did I fill in a lot of space and boy did I make a butt load of spring rolls. If there is some 'tutorial' you would like to see let me know and I will put on my little thinking cap and come up with a two minute blast.

For those that were 'brave' enough to send me a mailing address keep a look out your package will be on its way. Funny how the internets make people so wary of stalkers. I live in NYC, if you want to stalk us, take a number and get in line. Can you imagine?

Another reason I only just started uploading the videos is I have a faster computer now, my old unit was like carving stone to get the results I wanted, it just took forever.

I am incredibly competitive if you havent noticed, but insastiably lazy, but the video posts will contain the special and the not so special.....just the lazy me leaking through.

mood food

faggy vid




I marinated the chicken in satay seasonings overnight and simply grilled them in a grill pan on high heat for about 2 to 3 minutes per side or until they lifted away freely.




dip them in some peanut sauce and you are good to go.

spring roll

tequilla

I am not a fungi

Hey its that time when I never stop looking for mushrooms.



my mouth is dry..







This is yesterdays loot. Top picture, pretty, large and good but getting old, second picture large and beautiful scaly polypore but inedible though suitable for making broth just texturally rough, everything after that is good to go, oh except for the yellowish agrocybes, hard to tell which ones arent poison, and the rest just taste bitter. The last shot is my delicious harvest of bountiful ladies. Oh....very, very first picture - the big boy of the lot. Super fresh super ready for the grill.




Plus a snake. Cold so it moved real slow

.

lamb vindaloo

Fresh made nan and a side of potatoes kurma and we are set, you tell me.

lunch launch

coconut soy milk at night



hot dog and grape soda at lunch


It is not easy starting a new business and it is especially not easy if you are me. I get in a comfort zone and it is really hard to pry me out of it. As some of you may or may not have gathered I work from home. I have always worked from home save for those few instances when I had to please a partner and 'get a job'. I do not function well in the group settings. You can go back and read my report cards from when I was a kid and they said and I quote "excellent student but does not work well with others" not much has changed. I like the freelance world. I have been 'dabbling' as a personal chef for a little while now. I have had a few clients here and there but I let them know it was short term and we did the term. I did it this way to get a feel and the feeling is good so now it is time to stop testing the waters and dive in. I have made vegetarian, elderly dietary restricted, you name it I can do it, even vegan though I have not done too much of that. Whats my point? Fear. I hate to fail (who doesnt) and at my age failure is no longer an option. While I have made money along the way this is my passion -along with poetry (what a bread winner that one) so with my fear in my pocket I attack. See I need to get uniforms and everything to do it the way I want to.........get my jist yet? Wierd ass perfectionist, thats my problem.

weak ends

neighborhood barbeque = coconut soy milk.

the other side

Sometimes I wonder where I've been.

Hills go up and they run down. Over and over again.

hills

It seems fun but where is the fun in photographing everything you do, I try but I get so bored of me, so I photograph our food, now that is boring too. We want to document, we need to document, we grew up being documented. What to do? First off I am the most disorganized that you will ever come across. Scrapbooks are a thing of the past. I didnt make any so I try along the way 'electronically'. Scrapbooking? Philosophy? Self realization? Personal journies? I'm in it for life. Zen teaching tells me that with every hill you come across you climb the one in front of you because that is your hill and not only do you climb the hill you climb the hill happily for two of reasons: happy that you can climb a hill, happy that you have a hill to climb. Sometimes it is a lot of little hills sometimes it seems like one huge hill with little hills in between but imagine a life with no hills, whats the point? Hill free. Even more boring is having no hills to climb. So what ever little 'bumps' in the road come along be happy because those are your bumps, but dont forget to keep on climbing your hill, it is your hill -after all - and take pictures along the way.

kitchen dance

I think every time I feel festive I want to dance in the kitchen. Today was no exception. Do you ever feel this way?
no



yes


What ever......

orthorexia

Here is a little something, its called orthorexia nervosa and it is an unhealthy obsession with eating healthy food. This article and its links are barely dabbling but its a taste. I guess its a nice clinical term since 'healthfood junkie" just doesnt sound right. I have complained about this for years now we shall see what studies get done and what they produce. The best diet is a balanced diet everyone knows that and if you need supplements then you are not eating the right things to get the right things. Food has the vitamins and nutrients that your body needs so additional vitamins and nutrients should be for those that are not eating right...makes sense to me. There is a book out there by the man who coined this term Dr. Steven Bratman. I am not saying that healthy living is bad I am only saying people who eat everything are not as easily offended, thats all. I grew up on a farm I ate organic all of my youth but organic was not lacking in animal protien, I understand the need to eat good foods. Like I said only the future has the answers. Dont shoot the messenger.

if u had A clue

Talk about what you want its crab season,