Friday, April 04, 2008

Friday Random Ten

If it's Friday, there must be a soundtrack (I'm through shoveling political shit lookin' for the goddamned pony).

Mazurkas (4) For Piano - - - Chopin (Vladimir Horowitz)
Dance/Intermezzo - - - Sibelius
Rock'n'Roll - - - Dropkick Murphys
City On Down - - - O.A.R.
Los Angeles is Burning - - - Bad Religion
Ring of Fire - - - Social Distortion
She Drives Me Crazy - - - Fine Young Cannibals
Needle and the Damage Done - - - Neil Young (live bootleg, me on harp in Malibu)
Alligator Eatin' Dawg - - - Gatemouth Brown
Goodbye Easy Street - - - Jerry Jeff Walker and the Lost Gonzo Band (live bootleg)



Bonus:

Imitatin' Elvis - - - Steve Goodman

Thursday, April 03, 2008

Spring Moment

The Littlest Gator, blogging over at Group News Blog shows a gorgeous picture of the cherry blossoms in Japan. She asks "What does spring look like where you are?"

Gator my dear L'il one, it looks like this:



That's the morning view from my porch. It is what's right outside the window when I'm at the computer.

It's why somedays I don't get a lot of work done. Right now the wildflowers of the desert are in full on riot of color and scent. It will be gone soon, back to the various shades of brown and other browns. For now, it's wonderful.

Cheesecake (from Sardi's not nekkid pictures)

This one goes out to 7th Sister, a regular reader and commenter here, along with her own blog Shimoda's Dream. She, like me, is a fan of "beyond scratch" cooking. Where as many of the ingredients in a scratch recipe are also home made.

One of her most recent projects is to make cream cheese. She said it worked out great. I remembered that on one of my New York incursions I hit the maitre-d at Sardi's up for their cheesecake recipe. While it is one of the finest examples of cheesecake I've ever experienced it is not, by itself, worth putting up with New York or New Yorkers to obtain.

Luckily Sardi's has a give it out policy with their recipe. It's like music on the intenet now anyway, if you don't give it away it will just be stolen.

So, without further ado:


BASIC NEW YORK STYLE CHEESECAKE
INGREDIENTS


Crust:
15 graham crackers, crushed fine
2 tablespoons melted unsalted butter

Filling:

16 oz cream cheese
1 1/2 cups baker's sugar
3/4 cup milk (use whole milk here, reduced fats will reduce texture)
4 eggs
1 cup sour cream
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup cake flour
1 teaspoon lemon zest


Heat oven to 350°. Butter the bottom and sides of a springform pan generously. Mix the graham cracker crumbs and butter together and press evenly into the bottom of the springform pan.

With your stand mixer (a hand mixer might work, but it also might simply give up and start to smoke on you) cream together the cream cheese and sugar until evenly mixed and fluffy. With the mixer on "stir" add in the milk, and then the eggs, one at a time, mixing until each egg is incorporated. Add in the sour cream, cake flour, and vanilla and mix until smooth. Pour into the springform pan and sprinkle the top with the lemon zest.

Bake at 350° for 1 hour. Turn off the oven and cool the cake with the door closed for 5 to 6 hours. This will keep the top of your cake from cracking. (although, if you're a barbarian like me and enjoy your cheesecake slathered with things like citrus curds or marmalades a crack here and there won't matter at all).

Once the cake is cooled to room temperature, store covered in the refrigerator. Hint: You can find cheesecake containers at Smart & Final or any other respectable restaurant supply.

Variations: Top your cooled cheesecake with glazed strawberries, home canned peaches or any other flavoring that pleases you. Do decorative pipings with whipped cream if you so desire. You have my express permission to slap the shit out of any "purist" who tells you that is not how things are done in New York. If they are from New York, slap them before they even begin talking, just so they know who they're dealing with. Trust me, New Yorkers respond well to sudden, unprovoked violence. It reminds them of home.

For a nice chocolate flavor, put chocolate shavings over the top of the cake when you turn the oven off. Let them melt into and on top of the cheesecake as it cools.

UPDATE

Shimoda's Dream has posted her results. With pictures. I love me some food porn.

3B's

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Snapshot From the 50th Wedding Anniversary Party

My uncle, the filthy rich republican, throws a hell of a party. Nearly 200, mostly family, but many close friends, folks gathered at
Tom Ham's Lighthouse on Harbor Island (not really an island, but then that didn't even slow Coronado down either).

The food was great. The drinkers had an open bar. Even my family behaved themselves, well, mostly behaved themselves. I had forgotten about one little incident until tata whose regular emails are a source of both great amusement and often inspiration sent me this. . .

link to a post on "i blame the patriarchy"

Which I will confess is not one of my regular reads. They have too many rules and shit. Usually when I'm making comments or writing emails I do away with capitalization. Part of it's because I dig e.e. cummings poetry, part of it's because I'm fucking lazy about stuff in general.

Also, most of the "politically correct" folks give me hives. Anytime you encounter them I give you permission to run away screaming and not be ashamed in the slightest.

If you've read the post and the comment thread then the rest of my post will make sense. If you haven't read it, either read it, or move on because the rest of this only makes sense in reference to the post and the comments.

I grew up with racism all my life. Both from redskins, and rednecks. Arizona is about as segregated a state as you can ask for. In the fifties, well, let me just say, "Fuck me running." Even now, the segregation and the boundries are as drastic and clear as if they were engraved in stone, or plastered on billboards. Everybody is supposed to know their place and fucking stay there. So, I didn't get all worked up when I read the Okie redneck's comments. I will even allow that he probably does love his wife, at least as much as a god deluded redneck racist motherfucker who most likely couldn't pass the exit test for junior high is capable of loving anything that isn't white, a gun, or a dog.

I still get all kinds of unconscious stuff from people. Some of it is actually pretty well intentioned. Offensive, but that's not how it is meant.

Usually it's stuff like when people find out about my being half Apache they launch into poetic "noble savage" bullshit, or they, and this one cracks me the fuck up, go into Lakotah phrases that they picked up from a Kevin Costner movie.

Apache ain't Lakotah, which ain't Chippewah, which ain't Piaute (who are Apache cousins) which ain't Comanche (more fucking cousins). There really isn't any such thing as a native american issue, or even native americans who get along all that well. You wouldn't hear about somebody being from Germany and immediately start in on how much you love the Flemish painters now would you?

Hell, the Apache don't get along all that well among themselves. That doesn't even bring in the traditional contempt and emnity for the To'hono O'Odam and other Arizona nations.

So, back to the party and shit.

My cousin, the brilliant attorney, and I are out front of the restaurant. We are both dressed to the nines appropriate to the occaision. We are wearing wickedly tailored suits. We both have eagle feathers in our hair. Mine is a feather combination of golden eagle, bald eagle, red tail hawk tail feathers, with Raven feathers to identify me as a truth teller, a traveler, a warrior, and a Raven Soldier. These fit into a turquoise jeweled silver clip. With my long grey hair in a pony tail it looks fucking fierce, and hot. My cousin has two golden eagle feathers that are in a silver/turquoise sleeve that he clips onto the end of a small side braid that goes from his temple down the side of his face. He's wearing a three piece navy blue Armani suit and a white broadcloth shirt. He looks stylishly ferocious too.

We're taking in the cool sea air, minding our own business, talking to each other and somebody from the restaurant's regular business area comes out. It's a middle aged white guy and his middle aged white woman companion. She sees my cousin and I and how we are dressed, especially the feathers. She decides that she is entitled to explanations so she asks:

Are you Indians?

Us: Yes we are.


Now, she launches into a monologue designed to let us know that she knows exactly who we are, and that she's OK with that. She goes straight into that whole "Stewards of the Earth" rant that is dearly treasured by white folks. We stand there politely.

She goes on, and on, and on about how our ancestors lived in beautiful harmony with nature. (which tells me she knows right around jack fucking shit about the desert)

She pauses for a breath. Normally, especially if we were in Arizona, I would invite her to come out to the Superstition Mountains to see where my greenpeace loving, tree hugging, earth's true children ancestors hunted buffalo by driving entire herds off of cliffs. I decide that this is neither the time, nor the place for that, so I instead point to my cousin and say:

He's not only an Indian, he's an attorney, and gay.

Her face goes blank. Her mouth opens, then closes without a single sound. The white guy takes her away.

When they are out of sight and sound we fall against each other laughing.

3B's

Monday, March 31, 2008

Cuss-O-Meter

The Blog-O-Cuss Meter - Do you cuss a lot in your blog or website?
Created by OnePlusYou - Free Online Dating

I came in at 37% which means that I cuss more than 312% of the blogs out there.

Fuck me tender is all I gots ta fucking say.

3B's

*which won't really be a crosspost at all...I'm going to run the URL for that site, then probably apologise more the way I have lowered the level of discourse.