Time-out

[josh84]

I just got it! An anagram for nadil.

HA

Josh

[LuisP]

Yes, I know this company (ahem) has had its issues …. but,
The Tesla Model S is a full-sized electric five-door hatchback produced by Tesla Motors. It uses no gasoline and does not produce any tailpipe emissions.

Yes, it is an electric car. But a “special” one.

It was first shown to the public in the 2009 Frankfurt Motor Show as a prototype, and its retail deliveries started in the United States in June 2012 and in Europe in early August 2013.

It has the greatest range available in the market of electric cars, with a official autonomy for the model equipped with an 85 kWh lithium-ion battery pack … of 265 miles (426 km) !

Also, the Model S “Signature Performance” model has a top speed of 130 mph (210 km/h !) and accelerates from 0 to 60 mph in 4.2 seconds (!) due to its 416 hp (310 kW), 443 ft•lb (600 N•m) rear-mounted electric motor.

The charger is integral to the vehicle and the charge port is hidden behind the left rear taillight, allowing charging from 120/240-volt sources at up to 10 kW.

A Supercharger can add (!) up to 200 miles (320 km) of range in 30 minutes (!) and a full charge in approximately one hour (!) with an 85 kWh battery.

And what's else, in 2013, Tesla decided to make Supercharging free for life for all 85 kWh Tesla Model S's.

This Tesla Model S has won numerous awards and recognition, such as
- the 2013 World Green Car of the Year,
- 2013 Motor Trend Car of the Year,
- Automobile Magazine's 2013 Car of the Year,
- Time Magazine Best 25 Inventions of the Year 2012 award, and
- the Consumer Reports' top-scoring car ever.

Tesla, the Nikola one, would laugh at it….

But I love it.

So, hope you don't terribly mind me saying so.

[LuisP]

Hope you guys had a nice Holy Week.

Mine was very good. Notwithstanding Lent’s last legs - or because of it - I ate a lot of the traditional “Folar”. You may not be familiar with what that is, so just to help you improve your Knowledge About Trivia, it is a kind of anise and cinnamon sweetened bread that represents the one eaten in the Last Supper and that can be stuffed with several kinds of pork meat, but – now pay attention ! – must also always have in it at least one boiled egg, symbolic of the Resurrection.

Without the boiled egg, you’ve got a dud, meaning, Nada.

That is why some folks, just to be on the safe side of things, stuff it with two, three and even 4 eggs. No way in Hell you won’t then have a Resurrection, that’ll be for sure, Oh Ye of Little Faith !

Folar.jpg (41.93 KiB) Viewed 2506 times

Not a great thing to eat, grant you that, but tradition is tradition. It started as a gift to the local parish Father and to every Godfather but nowadays it has been democratized and everyone can eat it for religious decorum of a popular nature has felt, and succumbed to, equalizing pressure.

Anyways, on Good Friday, as usual, we did not eat meat. It is one of two days during the entire year (the other being Christmas Eve) when we thoroughly abstain from it.
If you play in my League, you’ll know why.

If you don’t, well, no harm done in learning how to cook an Octopus. The tastiest way, that is !

Which is, yes, exactly, the point of all this writing.

Because this year, instead of plain grilled fish (fish bones being “an issue” with (ahem) the flesh of my flesh), I decided to cook us a nice, rather large, mean looking Octopus.

When I announced it, the wife gave me “The Look”. Sideways. And said “Octopus is not a fish”.

The oozy creature inside a plastic bag in my hands, I just replied, grinning “Well, it sure ain’t meat, now is it ?”.

“Okay, fine, but no way we’re gonna eat it boiled. You’re roasting it “À Lagareiro”” she said, knowing too well the work involved.

But I had outthinked her (I play Chess and she doesn’t, so, it comes quite naturally).

“Yep, thought that would be your idea and that is why I also brought along this olive oil from Romão” I answered, pulling up a 3 liter flask.

Now this olive oil is from the northeastern region of our country, a place where olive trees do not grow well and are scarce, but – (ahem) God knows why – produces such a fine nectar that some years ago it won a olive oil world contest !

Olives and olive oil.jpg (16.31 KiB) Viewed 2506 times

I had her nailed, so to speak. And she knew it.

“Okay, your show” she said briskly, “I’m no Pilate, so if in trouble don’t you play the Herod on me” she added, for good measure.
“Sure hon” I replied, with a final punch-line issued to her back “now don’t you forget to wash your hands too !”.

Giggling at my own shrewdness and savvy (what can I say ? I’m a jerk), I rolled up my shirt sleeves. And got to it.

Hard work, it is, cooking a cephalopod. If not done right, it would be akin to munching leather. She knew it … and knew I know it.

Risky stuff. But hey, what else is new around my life nowadays ? It’s not as if I was trying to decipher Leedskalnin, understand Keely or make sense of Crick, or even find a jocular Latin throwback to a panel of dark suited, stern colleagues, now is it ?

To get back on track,
Having no body, a octopus’s head is connected to its legs (hence, cephalopod). Inside the head there’s a beak. Plus a lot of other jelly stuff. So you ram your hand inside it and pull everything out. You empty the head of its “brains” and remove the immensely powerful beak, ripping it out (these guys are able to eat a full exoskeleton jacketed lobster with it !)

Then, you have to wash it. Thoroughly. It has a lot of goo, and it all has to come out. A “gooed” octopus is inedible. To me and mine, that is. More resilient folk laugh at this but we’re a very civilized Family and as such we do not “eat” food, we (ahem) “savour” it. So, no goo whatsoever is acceptable. Not a oozing drop.

If you buy it frozen, what I then did is not required for freezing the octopus breaks the muscles fibers and renders it soft. But I had bought it fresh. As it should be. I was not fooling around. For I’m no fool … just to set that record straight for by now it may not seem that I am. Not a fool, I mean !

So, you have to beat the living (ahem) bejeesus out of it and that’s why I grabbed a kitchen hammer. And started to beat my octopus. It was a nice 15 minutes, rather satisfying in its menial bestiality, I have to (ahem) confess, after which the octopus was adequately softened.

Another thorough wash and time had arrived to pressure cook it.

Pressure Pan.jpg (17.84 KiB) Viewed 2506 times

Into the pressure pan it then went. Added water, mixed with white wine, just to cover 2 thirds of it, plus a peeled but intact onion.

Now doctrine differs on the onion bit. It is supposed to add flavor and color, but some say it doesn’t do a thing. Since I’m not given to transcendental problems, I placed a whole onion and to hell (ahem) with it.

(I’m coughing a lot, I know, it’s bothersome, but that’s what happened in my mind, so hey, whatever).

After it starts to boil (hiss), you have to leave it boiling for around 45 minutes.

Plenty of time, then.
For me to chop garlic (plenty), coriander (some) and wash, but not peel, “new” potatoes (new harvest), knife a longitudinal cut and soft boil them in salted water with a whisk of Romão’s olive oil, to add its flavor.

Meanwhile, still waiting for the pressure pan to do its work, I grabbed a beer and shot the breeze with me myself (“gonna be the best damn octopus in the goddam neighborhood” I said inside my head, “no need to play the humble guy on this serious shite, now is there” I continued, “who is she to think I’d do a Herod to her Pilate” I thought, working myself up, “yeah, just because I bought a feckin octopus instead of feckin fish I gotta put up with all this aggravation, now do I, goddamit” … and so on and so forth).

Time passes satisfyingly quickly in this way. Soon it was time to get to work once again.

So I removed the octopus, dried it, chopped the legs off and cut its head into small one inch long slices. Grabbed a adobe pot (from several available, go figure why) and disposed in it the no longer, but now quartered, cephalopod.

Placed the potatoes around it. Sprinkled everything with the chopped garlic, poured abundant olive oil over it all and added some bay leaves, randomly. Finished it off with a glass of white wine (always the same that would be drank with the meal) on top of all the stuff.

And into the oven, pre heated at 200 Celsius, the adobe pot went. Another 30 minutes.

Time for a second beer (yep, I can stand the heat and won’t ever leave a kitchen, but sure need some refreshment while at it).

Half an hour later, out the octopus and the potatoes came. Crispy, and smelling delicious.

Even spread of the chopped fresh coriander to top it, and into the table.

Not to boast, but it was (ahem) divine.

Yes, it was a nice Good Friday dinner.

I won’t bother you with my Easter’s Day family lunch.
It is always the same: roasted kid goat.

Done by “her”.
(ahem)

[StarCat]

I think pagan foods are more fun. One of our traditional foods for the celebration of Ostara is green and yellow jellybeans. Don't know if I would like octopus. I think I would probably be allergic to it. I'm allergic to kalamari, which is annoying, because I really like it. My family however, insists that the ability to breathe trumps my liking for kalamari. Sigh.

Cat

[re-rose]

Thanks Luis. Your masterpiece looks wonderful, even to this non-octopus eater. Feeding people makes me almost as happy as gardening.

rose

[LuisP]

Well Rose, many thanks and hope you like this one too !

How to cook a steak or a hamburger

People do terrible things to their steaks and hamburgers. Terrible.

Now, just to get this across very clear, I’m not talking about making a “5 star restaurant” steak (waiting for you, I am, Traveler, fingers drumming), but just about your ordinary, everyday, 15 minute steak.

As if, like, that was not ambitious enough ! Or as if, like too, you didn’t need it !
That ambition, I mean.

For this IS the domain where people do epic fails, do tremendous aggressions and completely eradicate the pleasure of savoring a true, bona fide, high cholesterol, tasty, caloric steak.

Steak.jpg (13.19 KiB) Viewed 2487 times

Meaning, delicious as Hell.
For, as the music goes, “everything that kills me, makes me feel alive”.

Regarding, at least, steaks (cough) no truer and wiser words were ever uttered from a man’s stomach through his vocal cords !

So, ditch you barbecues, that horrendous excuse for not knowing how to cook shite and just burn the living lights out of your food ! As we, south European peasants call around here, when one doesn’t know how to cook, he (she) does a “firefighter meal”.

So, a steak “A La FireFighter” (pronounced with a severe French accent, just to further emphasize the ridicule of it !) is the epitome of the most abject ignorance, not to mention, a vile insult to both yourself and those who were foolish enough to trust you with the excruciating – but ballsy – task of feeding them.

And that’s’ where I step in, with this post.
To help, to enlighten and to improve your U.S. of A. selves. Take it as you will, I know it ain’t nice to say it ! But I’m in a condescending, traitorous mood today, and so will share with you this secret.

No need for Biefeld–Brown effects, Chinese Space Seeds or Hutchison Tones.

Just your steaks, a frying pan (large), olive oil (some) of the extra virgin and a little acidic variety (if you don’t have it, just mix olive oil with some white wine vinegar and that’s it, no need to make this something out of Quantum Physics Math) , garlic (3 “teethes” per steak), bay leaves (1 medium leaf per meat unit), red wine (a generous glassful), black pepper (in grain, inside a glass or wooden “mill”), sea salt (not that bourgeois “fine salt” thing), big brown potatoes (two per steak), fresh Origami (a bit), and a small bottle of English “Worcestershire Sauce” handy … as in, well, them English cook shite but have invented this nice sauce, regardless, so we should use it even if they don’t know what to properly do with it and just invented it.

Looking around your kitchen and seeing all these prerequisites, you’re ready.
All you now lacks is … a disposition equal to your determination, meaning, something along a feeling of …. “I own the damn kitchen !”

Yep, dangerous ... but 'Mine' !.jpg (45.25 KiB) Viewed 2487 times

This is very important. Your mental attitude. If you step into a kitchen feeling and acting like a Lamb, you’ll get slaughtered. At the very least, you’ll cut a finger or two, burn the food and even start a fire that’ll threaten to burn your house down.
Therefore, you must – always – feel like you are in control, like you can only be surpassed by God Himself (as if He dared, so it’s really a moot point !) and every living and inert creature is just waiting for your superior decisions to make themselves useful, in utter submission to the Power you represent !

In a few harsh, but very correct and simple words - Don’t let anything fu*k with you. Or else.
Sound advice, even if a bit rude.

For you will then be unbeatable. And your cooking remembered for generations to come.
Trust me. I’ve been there. Done it.
And lived to tell about it.

As I now will, if only YOU pay attention and not simply sit there, reading this and thinking I’m just blowing hot air or making small talk !

First,
You crush – not chop – the garlic. Do it with a spoon, press each tooth with it and just crush it. Don’t bother with its “leafs”. Leave them there, the motherfuk*ers, crushed, and set it aside. Chop the Origami, and also set them aside (less than a minute gone by, and counting)

After which,
You wash and peel your potatoes. Cut them in parallel slices, not too thin and not too thick, just enough. Thoroughly wash again the sliced potatoes. (3 steaks so 6 potatoes, 3 minutes, still counting, 4 minutes in total).

Next,
You light your stove and put your large frying pan in it.

Meanwhile,
You grab your steaks and feel them, one by one. Crush them a bit in your fingers. See the bull or cow it belonged to, harness its strength inside you, and thank their grazing efforts which now will pass on to you. It takes but a few seconds but this is important. You are now a part of the meat, so you will treat it with respect and your cooking will show it, even if you can’t see, or are too dumb to understand it.

Next,
You light your frying oil (or olive oil, even better !) casserole to fry your potatoes, under a strong flame (another two minutes have gone by, so 6 overall and counting).

By now your large frying pan is so hot it’s smoking … as it should ! So you pour in it the acidic olive oil (2 tablespoons) and on top of it the crushed garlic teeth and the bay leaves. Let it fry for some 30 seconds, turning the garlic around so as to fry equally and pass its flavor, along with the bay leaves, onto the olive oil.

Then,
Put the steaks in. See them hiss and smoke, for between 15 to 30 seconds. Turn them over, and repeat. On this first sealed side, pour some sea salt. After same amount of time, turn them again, drastically reduce the flame, and pour another bit of salt on the other sealed side of the steaks, immediately followed by another 3 tablespoons of the olive oil (by now, a further 3 minutes have elapsed. So, 9 in full and counting).

Your casserole should now have its oil hot ready. So place the sliced potatoes in it, and forget them for 5 minutes.

Move,
Onto the steaks. Sprinkle - each side - with liberal drops of the “Worcestershire Sauce” and, with a spoon, well spread the drops onto the meat. Grab you black pepper mill and grind some on either side of your streaks. Spread and crunch its bits on the meat with the spoon. Now pour the entire red wine glass over all the steaks. Lower the flame a bit more, and just let it all simmer (3 minutes on this, 12 minutes in full, and counting).

Check your potatoes,
They should be right about done. Wait a bit if don’t. When done, take them out, high jump them a bit so as to squeeze out all the olive oil and drop them onto a kitchen paper covered large table plate. Tap the paper around to further remove the grease and, immediately, sprinkle them with the chopped origami. Mix it well, so as to the small leave bits to evenly adhere to the potatoes (you have just lost another 2 minutes, 14 in full).

Kill the flame on the steaks.

Remove, plate each stake plus a generous dose of the origami pelted potatoes, pour 1 tablespoon of the frying pan’s juice on top of each steak, and serve.

You have labored for 15 minutes, give or take 1 or 2.

Properly done steak.jpg (8.1 KiB) Viewed 2487 times

Time to enjoy now.
Serve with a glass of room temperature, strong red wine (grownups) or plain public pumbling water (children).

Next time you see a steak “a la firefighter”, you’ll know what to think.

And even better, what to do.

No need to thank me. I know you’re thankful.
As you should.

[re-rose]

Yum! I do great steaks in a cast iron skillet...but have been missing the chopped origami.

Working on that reverse fold now:
http://www.origami-instructions.com/origami-crane.html

However, there's movement that claims the 'reverse sear' is the only way to cook a steak. Slowly bring it to beige. Take it off the fire and chill it, then sear it. Bosh. The good old cowboy method still has its place around a campfire. Charred and pink is also yummy.

rose

[StarCat]

Forgive my ignorance please. I am but a humble cat in search of my long lost mind. You lost me at fresh origami. I could probably ask Donovan to fold me some, he has several Star Wars origami books, but I have tried to set the kitchen on fire twice in the last ten years. I'm not convinced that I want to try cooking chopped folded paper. Is origami perhaps the long lost twin of oregano? I could manage that. Prey enlighten this poor befuddled feline.

Cat

[TheTraveler]

Ok LuisP,

I totally disagree with the ditch your BBQ statement. In fact, I will bet I can cook a perfect steak at any Rare or medium style that you like (sorry, no well done in my house) and it will be perfect with excellent grill marks. Oh yea, remember to take the steaks out of the frig early and after you season them let them sit until they hit room temperature. I also never rub a steak as I want that season taste on the surface and the natural flavor to overwhelm your senses once your first bite is over.

Personally I don't think any steak should be seasoned with anything but Garlic salt, fresh cracked pepper and a dose of Lawry's Season Salt. Of course there are exceptions to that such as making a cracked pepper crusted steak with the appropriate sauces.

To make this meal complete, take a baked potato, place it on a sheet of aluminum foil, add two large pats of butter, salt, cracked pepper and another generous splash of Lawry's then roll the foil around the potato and chuck it on the grill until when you squeeze the sides they feel soft (you can stick then with a fork, but wait until you think they are done).

While the potato is cooking grab some fresh asparagus, properly trim the tails and rolled in olive oil and heavily salt them and let it sit. Grab a large handful of button mushrooms and slice into thin strips and drop them in a sauté pan with more butter and garlic salt.. Don't start them yet.


After the potatoes are done, cook the steaks for a bit (fire should be about 500+ degrees, about 2-3 minutes per side for medium rare), to the desired rareness, and when they are done and while they are resting, start the mushrooms and then drop all the asparagus on the really hot fire and cook until they start to char on a side. Turn then constantly until all sides have nice char marks on them ( but not until they burn or turn mushy) usually two to three minutes, then take them off.

If you fire were correctly hot, be careful, cause it burns hand if your slow getting all them beauties off the fire.

Plate it all, grab your favorite bottle of red wine and sit down and go to heaven.........

P.S. yep, it's a simple meal, but I bet it's as good as any steak you can find in any restaurant.

[Mikado14]

A steak...on a fire.

Asparagus...either grilled or steamed but firm...melted butter, sea salt, garlic...

Pan fried steak....(shudder)....the only thing pan fried should be calves liver with onions. The liver should be floured, fried in butter with a touch of olive oil, sliced onions piled on top and the pan should be covered on a low to medium fire.

..well, just my opinion.

Cooking is like a thought, everyone does both...cooking and thinking. They vary from person to person...and both should be tasted by others.


Mikado

...you don't know what you might be missing. just a thought..and not from the Brown book of Life.