Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Monthly Archives: January 2006
Your morning bwaahahahahaha
The BEAST brings us the 50 Most Loathesome People in America of 2005, including a special punishment for each one. Warning: if you think George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are great, wise, and wonderful human beings, stay away from this list.
This BEAST article may be old news, but I just discovered it this morning, by — how else? — snooping around Technorati.
My take? Michelle Malkin deserves to be much higher in the list than #49; Michael Brown and Scooter Libby got off too easy; Terry Schiavo — cheap shot, not funny; most chilling entry: #4; person most conspicuously absent from the list: Tim Russert. I mean, really. They put Geraldo Rivera on the list, but not Russert? Rivera’s a has-been.
Okay, Hoffman, stop goofing off and get to work.
D.
Fesenjan
I’ve given you balls up to your ears; now, at long last, I shall deliver on my promise to give you walnuts.
By necessity, I’ve learned how to cook ethnic. I can bake pita bread (since our grocery stores consider this too exotic), fix a mean baklava, do a delicious baba ganouj or hummus. My Chinese stir fries are passable, yet better than the local fare, and my Indian cuisine is excellent. One of our favorite dishes is leftover tandoori chicken stewed in a sauce of onions and cream.
Tonight, I felt like doing something special with duck. Cassoulet takes days to prepare, and Peking duck at least a full day, so that meant either pan-seared duck breast or fesenjan. Karen opted for fesenjan.
Ninety percent of the labor comes from boning the duck, so if you want to substitute boneless chicken thighs and breasts, be my guest.
Fesenjan
1. Skin and bone the duck. (Use the carcass to make a quick stock, and render the fat from the skin. Fried duck skin is great all by itself, but it’s also yummy on salads. Duck fat can be substituted for butter or olive oil for any savory dish. I use it to make chopped chicken liver.) Chop the meat into one-inch pieces and sprinkle the pieces with salt and freshly ground pepper.
2. Meanwhile, toast 2 cups of walnuts in the oven at 350F until, erm, toasty. Don’t let ’em burn. Do let them cool, then grind them in a food processor. You want the mixture to be a little coarse.
3. In a heavy-bottomed pot (a Dutch oven works great), brown the duck meat in two or three tablespoons of butter. Set the browned meat aside in a glass bowl to catch the drippings.
4. Chop a large onion — fine, coarse, doesn’t really matter. Fry the onions in the leftover butter. If you’d like, add a teaspoon of cinnamon to the onions towards the end of the frying. You want the onions to be golden, or a little darker.
5. Add to the onions the duck and its drippings, the ground walnuts, about 1 cup of pomegranate paste, and 1 to 2 cups of stock. Start with one cup of stock, stir the ingredients, and add more stock until you get the desired consistency. (You know — like stew!) Here’s an online Persian Grocery that sells pomegranate paste and oh my heavens zereshk berries, too! Now I can make zereshk polo.
6. Add about 1 tablespoon of sugar, and adjust the salt to taste. Add more pomegranate paste if you’d like your stew a bit more sour, or (if you’re like my wife) you just love pomegranate. Simmer for 20 to 30 minutes.
7. For tender meat, you want to brown the meat as quickly as possible, and then simmer as gently as possible. Remember, dark meat doesn’t toughen up nearly as readily as white meat, so if you’re using chicken, you may want to use nothing but thigh meat.
8. Serve over basmati rice. (Yes, that Persian Grocery sells basmati, too.) Best basmati rice: rinse a cup of rice, boil the rice in LOTS of salted water until it is not quite tender, then strain the rice. In a non-stick or heavy-bottomed pot, melt 2 to 4 tablespoons of butter. Layer the rice on top of the butter. Put the lid on the pot. Now, let the rice steam by keeping the pot over a very low heat for, I dunno, 15 to 30 minutes. It will be done long before 30 minutes, but that doesn’t matter. If you do it right (and believe me, this is an art I still haven’t quite mastered) you’ll have a delicious golden brown crust of rice at the bottom of the pot.
Any questions?
D.
When Chihuahuas attack!
First killer bees, now attack chihuahuas hungry for human flesh:
The officer suffered minor injuries including bites to his ankle on Thursday when the five Chihuahuas escaped the 17-year-old boy’s home and rushed the officer in the doorway, said Fremont detective Bill Veteran.
Nor is this an isolated incident. According to this professional consultant who dresses his chihuahuas in camo gear, “Before they’ve had their morning coffee, attack Chihuahuas are not to be trifled with.”
Fortunately, for $44.95, you can warn neighbors and passersby that your attack Chihuahuas are on duty.
So — what do you think — Worst? Photoshopping? Ever?
More later. The Du Bist Deutschland campaign has given me ideas.
D.
Will Gabriele or Darla . . .
please come over here and tell me about the significance of Du Bist Deutschland and klowände?
They are both top search terms at Technorati, but I can’t find much of an explanation in English. I feel so out of the loop.
D.
Late night variety pak
It’s late, I’m tired, and this is all ya get.
Helen Wheels left one looooong response to my Sunday blog on the rise of fascism in America. I thought about reprinting it here, but it turns out Helen posted the more detailed version on her blog, yesterday. She quotes Lawrence W. Britt’s article on fascism at length, to chilling effect.
Consider that a mighty shout.
Many thanks to Kate and her hubs for turning me on to Campbell & Reece Biology, Seventh Edition. Looks like this is going to be a great experience for my home schooler AND his dad. This beautiful textbook includes a CD with useful material (how rare is that?), and the online resources rock. Tests! They have tests! They sure know how to make home schooling easy.
Jake dove into it with both feet. Right away, the book stimulated a useful discussion on embryogenesis, haploidy, diploidy, gastrulation, and neurulation. We had to backtrack a bit to talk about gametogenesis and fertilization, but I didn’t mind. Damn it, if there’s one thing I’m qualified to teach, it’s biology. No, really, I have a PhD in this stuff (didn’t know that, did ya?)
I warmed to the discussion, eager to share my knowledge of meiosis and mitosis, spermatogenesis and seminal vesicles, ovulation and the menstrual cycle. Then, suitably enlightened, I guided Jake back towards the subjects of fertilization, implantation, and early embryonic development: initial cell divisions, morula (what the Germans call zellballen, IIRC), blastula, morula, gastrula, neurula, embyro.
Me: Any questions?
Jake: I still don’t get how the sperm get up there.
Me: Their tails spin round and round, like little motorboat propellers. They swim up there.
Jake: But how do they get up there?
Me: Well, during orgasm, muscular contractions in the uterus help draw the sperm upward.
Jake: But how do they get up there?
This clearly called for a visual aid.
Moral of the story*: never take anything for granted.
D.
*That part of the story is false. Of course my ten-year-old already knows the basic mechanics of intercourse. He’s my son, for heaven’s sake.
Moral of the story: never discount my willingness to pounce on a cheap visual joke.
A timely Thursday Thirteen
 |
Thirteen Things about Doug And, dammit, you’d better play this time, or next week, I’ll tag your ass. 1. Goethe, not Nietzsche, said, "What does not kill me makes me stronger." Three intervals in my life put this to the test, but I was not so much tempered by them as torn apart and put back together.
2. As a four-year-old, I was traumatized by a cantaloupe (AKA musk melon). This was not one of those desperate, ego-formative moments. I got over it. 3. My first memory: I’m two, nearly three, and my brother and sister are helping me get dressed in the back seat of my dad’s car. (A blue Chevy, Sis?) It is the first day of my first Voyage of the Damned: summer vacation, driving from LA to Boston to see the rest of the family. It would not be my last such voyage. 4. I liked to get up when my parents got up. They would eat breakfast, drink coffee, and not yell at each other. I hid in the hallway with my back against the wall heater, listening to them talk. My mom didn’t like this. She thought the wall heater would give me “arthuritis.” 5. On that first Voyage of the Damned, we stopped for breakfast in Needles. I saw a red firetruck I dearly wanted. My mother wanted to buy it for me, but my father didn’t. Much psychodrama ensued. 6. We took the southern route that year. One night, in a motel room in the Deep South, we woke up to find the room infested with giant water bugs. Trust me: you really don’t want to click on that link. 7. Bliss for five-year-old me was a day at the beach . . . although I hated it when my mom would towel the sand from my back. Ow. 8. I had my first mathematical epiphany in kindergarten. I told my teacher, Mrs. Biyotch, “One and one are two!” and she replied, “One plus one equals two.” Talk about buzz kills. 9. I loved my pediatrician, Dr. Johnson. Or maybe I just loved ripping off all my clothes as fast as I could. 10. I didn’t like my next doctor, Dr. May. To this day, I don’t understand why a doctor would feel the need to do a rectal exam on a ten-year-old boy (or younger) at every visit. Actually, I do understand, and I don’t like it one bit. 11. Among other childhood fears, I was afraid of the dark, and of mysterious strangers coming into our house. My sister knows why. I didn’t get over my fear of the dark until med school. 12. My grandfather groped me once, but I didn’t hold it against him. (Hah! I love that gag.) No, this wasn’t one of those ego-formative moments, either. 13. To some degree, I live in a constant state of breath-holding, waiting for the next traumatic interval. 1. Dariana |
View More Thursday Thirteen Participants
D.
Guess who’s coming to dinner!
Dear Mom and Dad1,
I didn’t know quite how to break this to you, so I’m sending this picture instead. I’ve met someone new. You’d like her; she’s ambitious (a nurse, as you can plainly see), and she wants a huge family, at least twelve kids. This shouldn’t be as difficult as it sounds, though, since she already has eight!
I can’t tell you how excited I am by all this. I’ve always wanted tall children, and my gal will surely provide. You see, she has crouched down about six inches so that we could take this photo cheek-to-cheek. Isn’t that awfully sweet of her?
Jacob is thrilled as can be at the thought of so many new brothers and sisters to play with. Karen is taking it as well as can be expected. It’s not as bad for her as you think, since we will all be moving to Utah and converting to Mormonism to take advantage of the bigamy thing.
We’re counting on your blessing!
Love2,
Doug
1. I don’t want you to get the impression that my parents are racist. They’re not. They are, however, 80 years old (my dad) and approaching 80 (my mom) and their ability to roll with the punches ain’t what it used to be.
2. As for the cruelty factor here, (1) they don’t read my blog, and (2) let’s just say I dish it to ’em every chance I get.
A Taste of L.A.
Remember the nuclear devastation of Los Angeles in Terminator 2? Karen and I saw that movie in L.A., and we were the only two people who chortled over Linda Hamilton’s dream of mushroom clouds. That’s how much we liked L.A.
Of course, that was before we lived in Texas, and that was also before we lived in the land of “Oh, God, please let that be a new restaurant, because our town really doesn’t need a seventh auto parts store!”
Without further ado, here are eight things I miss from Los Angeles, all food. (Sorry, Beth & all those other vegetarians out there, but I like meat.)
Mr. Creosote
1. Baci D’Alassio from Il Fornaio restaurant in South Pasadena. Think of Baci as two chocolate-hazelnut macaroons fused base-to-base with a dollop of semisweet chocolate. Here’s the recipe, and here’s a picture.
2. Fried smelt at Cafe Santorini in South Pasadena. Oh how I love my little fishies. I really, really don’t want to look up the mercury content of smelt on Fanatic Cook’s mercury chart. (Hah! They’re not on the chart. They must be mercury-free.)
Imagine a huge dish piled high with lightly battered smelt, fried to a golden crisp, sprinkled with finely chopped Italian parsley, and served with no shortage of lemon wedges. You eat these bad boys whole — head, tail, fins, bones, everything. The crunch is part of the experience. Oh, lordy lordy lordy lordy.
3. Creme brulee at Cafe Santorini. Perfect creme brulee should have a warm, flawlessly crisped top, and a smooth, cold center. No damned bubbles. If there’s bubbles in the puddin’, the cook don’t know WTF about creme brulee. Here’s the Cook’s Illustrated recipe — I haven’t tried it out yet, but I will very soon. My beloved has a yen.
Karen, a creme brulee purist, hates to discover funky flavors on the first bite (Funky = anything other than vanilla). But I like a surprise. My favorite-ever creme brulee at Cafe Santorini featured a strong hint of bay leaf.
4. Basturma at Sahag’s Deli on Sunset. Basturma is the king of cold cuts, the ur-pastrami. Food critic Jonathon Gold called it “less a foodstuff than a force of nature.” It has the beefy intensity of bresaola, but the spice rub (hot paprika, fenugreek, and garlic) packs a wallop. Eat some basturma and give your unsuspecting Dearest a deep, deep kiss for a food sex memory that will last a lifetime. Here’s Sahag’s address.
5. Peking Duck at Quan Jude in Rosemead. World famous for their Peking Duck, Quan Jude sports photos of Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon dining at their Beijing restaurant. You can eat any part of the duck here — they even have duck tongue aspic on the menu (trust me — stick to the Peking Duck). Here’s the address.
If you’ve never had Peking Duck, this needs to be on your list of Things I Must Eat Before I Die. The whole point of Peking Duck is to render the duck skin of its fat and elevate it to crispy snips of heaven. The skin is served with a bit of meat, a bit of green scallion, and a dollop of plum sauce (or is it hoisin?) all wrapped in a thin, rather tasteless pancake. The pancake ain’t the point.
6. Pommes frites at Benita’s Frites on the Santa Monica Boardwalk. Pommes frites are the basturma of French fries. ‘Nuff said. What’s so great about Benita’s Frites? Not only do they get the frites just right, but they also have the greatest dipping sauces. My favorite was the sundried tomato aioli. Here’s a write-up and a recipe, but I can’t believe it’s that easy.
7. Vietnamese iced coffee . . . anywhere. This stuff is ubiquitous. You can’t walk into a Vietnamese restaurant and not get perfect iced coffee. Here’s the idea: aqua regia-strong espresso combined with sweetened condensed milk, served over ice. Take a look at this pictorial essay.
True fact: my evil wife once got my office staff addicted on this stuff to increase productivity. Who needs coca leaves?
8. Banh mi at any Vietnamese restaurant. I can think of many fine sandwiches: beef tongue on rye; hot pastrami on rye; Philly cheese steak sandwich. They all have their place in the Great Order of Sandwich Being, but even the best Jewish deli pastrami can’t compete with an average banh mi. They’re that good.
Banh mi come in a variety of styles, but they all consist of a French or Italian roll slathered in mayo and/or liver pate, layered with cold cuts (thinly sliced roast pork is my favorite) and produce. It’s the produce that makes the banh mi: cilantro, thinly julienned carrots and cucumbers (lightly pickled in nuoc cham), and a few julienned strips of hot green peppers. Assemble the sandwich and heat it up so that the crust gets crusty. Like great creme brulee, a perfect banh mi will be warm to hot on the outside, cool on the inside.
Read more about banh mi at this link.
You know what all of these things have in common? I can’t eat any of them. (Well, I could eat the basturma without any bread, but where’s the fun in that? And Peking Duck without the pancakes . . . the Chinese already think we’re barbarians.)
While living in L.A., I got up to my all-time max weight, 178 lbs. Take home message to me: be happy you’re not living in L.A., or else you’d have ended up like poor Mr. Creosote.
D.
Cry Baby Cry
Wi’w Biww O’Weiwwy, he not happy wid dose mean weft wing bwoggas.
On the January 23 O’Reilly Factor, Bill felt it necessary to
attack “far-left websites” for “put[ting] out a fatwa against him” and Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell, further claiming the websites engage in “organized terror.” (See Media Matters link, above.)
O’Reilly’s hyperbolic rhetoric takes its place alongside Chris Matthews, Pat Buchanan, Tucker Carlson, and Joe Scarborough, who are trying to equate opposition to Bush with support for bin Laden. O’Reilly, however, adds a distinctly personal spin to the affair. O’Reilly is the target of the fatwa; O’Reilly is the victim of a terrorist campaign.
Hey, Bill? Um, the same Bill who invited Al Qaeda to strike San Francisco? Tell you what. You send me your address, and I’ll send you a box of tissues.
Hat tip to Robot Buddha.
D.
Support Jill Carroll
I’d like to follow Blue Gal’s lead and ask that you all give some thought (and prayer, if you’re so minded) to the plight of kidnapped American reporter Jill Carroll. As the Christian Science Monitor reports, the Muslim community has been vocal in their support for Ms. Carroll:
A delegation from the Council on American-Islamic Relations arrived in Baghdad Saturday, adding its voice to what is described as an unprecedented outpouring of Muslim support for the release of American reporter Jill Carroll.
“The kidnapping of Jill Carroll does not benefit the kidnappers,” said Nihad Awad, executive director of the Washington-based group that represents US mosques and Islamic associations. “She has been friendly and respectful of the Iraqi people, not an enemy,” he added.
I don’t think Blue Gal will mind if I shamelessly steal the rest of her post:
So here is my idea. Tell your blog readers you support Jill Carroll and link to the Monitor, just like I did. That’s it. Not too dramatic but drama is not what we need or want right now, no matter how much it might serve the interests of the 24/7 news universe.
Update: one reader had another good idea–to link to one of Jill’s own articles.
A leader of Hamas called for her release today. The Muslims are united on this. Amazing.
Let’s keep Jill Carroll in the forefront of our web-consciousness until she is released. Thanks!
D.