Week of yelling, day 3.

Seriously, Flamingo Las Vegas?  You're fucking charging fourteen ass-balls dollars a day for wifi?  I'm going to a fucking bloggers' conference at your fucking hotel, and you can't fucking spring for free wifi?  I can get that shit from my shitty ass neighbors and I only use their dick-shitty pool when they're not fucking paying attention.

What steel-toed kick-to-the-balls ironic fuckery is this?  Eat a dick, Flamingo.  Eat a bag of dicks.  Eat a dick sundae with whipped dick topping and hot chocolate dick sauce.

You know what I'd rather do than pay for your shitty, overtaxed wifi?  I'd rather slap a fucking otter with another, smaller otter.  I'd rather watch fucking Oprah shit a whole litter of kittens on live-ass testicle-licking television.

I'D RATHER FUCK A FUCKING CHEESE GRATER

I DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW THAT WOULD WORK BUT FUCKING PICTURE IT ANYWAY

YOU DICK

(...I'm still totally springing for wifi anyway.  Assholes.)

Week of yelling, day 2.

You.  Fucking rounded coffee mugs.  Assholes.

Every fucking time I try to rinse you out, you spit dirty fucking water ALL OVER MY FUCKING FACE.  What the shit.  Seriously, it gets fucking everywhere.

And every fucking time I curse and spit filthy fucking coffee water and I have to pick up another one of you ass-shitty dickfuckers and I have to do the same fucking thing all the fuck over again.  One after afuckingnother, like a fucking fluffer on a bukkake set.

ALL I WANT TO DO IS MAKE YOU CLEAN

DONKEY DICK SUCKING MOTHERFUCKERS

Week of yelling, day 1.

What better day than Hatuesday to kick off a week of me yelling incoherently?  No day, that's what day.

When I was in culinary school, fully fucking 90% of my class said they wanted to be cooks because they, and I fucking quote, "sucked at math".  What the fuck?

What do you fuckheads think being a fucking cook is all about?  You think it's some fucking fairytale where you throw shit in a pot from across the fucking room while Ride of the Fucking Valkyries is playing?  It's fucking consistency, you ballsack-sucking shitcakes, and that means following fucking recipes to a fucking T.

You're bad at math?  What the shit are you going to do when your chef tells you to 2.5 a fucking recipe, stand there with a fucking calculator?  How the fuck do you calculate food cost if you're not fucking measuring anything, you asshole?

And don't get me started on you FoH dickshits.  YOU NEED TO MAKE FUCKING CHANGE.  YOU NEED TO COME UP WITH A SERIES OF COINS OF VARYING VALUES TO QUICKLY AND ACCURATELY AGGREGATE A TOTAL BETWEEN ONE AND NINETY NINE YOU RECTAL REJECTIONS WHAT THE SHIT BALL ASS FUCK

Seriously, you want to get into the service industry because you suck at math?  Half the fucking job is math, shitbox, and the other half is fucking science.  Go get a job at Hot Topic and GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY KITCHEN

On my superpower.

I got into a discussion about superpowers while talking with Kitty today.  It was about the weather, and how I'm strangely resistant to cold.  Not immune, mind you; I can just bear significantly lower temperatures than the average human being, which is odd, considering my lineage.  But whatever.

So I was going to write a post about what my superpower(s) would be, but that seemed a little self-absorbed.  So instead I decided to ask those near and dear to me what they thought.  And here's what they said.

Perception
  Lauren:  X-Ray vision, if it has to be a classic superhero superpower.  Otherwise, perception.
  Marc:  Intuitive aptitude.
  Ness:  Analysis, absorption, and application of patterns and systems.

Persuasion
  Afshin:  you know face from the a-team?
    how he can talk his way into ladies' pants and out of mens' ire?
    you got some of that.

And not surprisingly, the vast majority of the responses came back with...
Culinary Crap
  Afshin:  also some crazy intuitive feel for flavors and aromas
  Shay:  making people hungry (actually, if I had to pick one, this would be it.  I'm worse than weed.)
  The Count:  your superpower is definitely frying things.
  Pericles:  Drunken pantry recipe creation.

  Na:  bacon
  me:  That's a meat product, not a superpower.
  Na:  cooking bacon

So there you have it.  I only gathered a limited sample, so guys, if you know me, lemme hear it.

And even if you don't, what do you think your superpower would be?  What do you think your friends would say?

On tuneups and tweaks.

Today, rather than work on a blog post, I decided to work on the blog itself.  Nothing drastic, just adjusting post titles for consistency, really.  Because that's the balance of things.  It can't be all pontification and stories, it can't be all recipes and realities.  Sometimes you wake up and you do nothing for your creative side because you just need to get stuff done that needs to get done.  And you balance those days against the days of creation because that's what being a functional human being is.

Anyway.  Take it easy guys, and have a good week.  I'll see you tomorrow.

(Maybe next time I take some time to tweak stuff around here, I'll actually add tags or something.  Probably not, though.  Seriously, who's actually going to search for something on my blog?)

On the night I met Barry.

Carmen was a classic LES hoodrat, decked out in studded leather and bad tattoos.  She smoked cowboy killers, sounded like she'd been doing it since she hit puberty.  She managed to make the gap in her front teeth look good.  We'd been hanging out ever since she fixed an overflowing urinal with her bare hands for me when I was slammed on a Sunday.  She was good people.  Rough around the edges, but as laid back and loyal as they come.

She and her buddy Jess closed the bar down with me that night.  They were only two-thirds-drunk; I was still jazzed from the last-minute rush.  So they said we should hit the Nancy Whiskey half a block down.

"You met Barry yet?  Aw, man, you gotta meet Barry."

So we knocked on the locked and shuttered door.  I could hear a chorus of voices from behind it shouting "We're closed!"  Not a one of them sounded sober.

They let us in.  Carm and Jess were established there, apparently.  The crowd was sparse - industry people I recognized from Bubby's and the Grand.  A taxi driver with a newspaper under his elbow, jawing with an off-duty cop with a bulge in the back of his sweatshirt.

And behind the bar loomed a man, scarecrow-skinny, with a shaved head and a wire-brush beard.  "Carmen!" he shouted, his Irish brogue thick as molasses.  One by one, he gave them hugs and cheek-kisses.  "What're yeh havin'?"

"Bud and a Maker's," said Carmen.  "Bud and a Maker's," echoed Jess.

Then it was my turn.  "Stoli Raz and soda," I said.

I didn't have an excuse.  This was back when Stolichnaya only had two or three flavors.  I'd been having fun with it, sucking down flavored vodka so I could pretend to drink something more interesting than gin and tonic.

Barry's eyes turned cold as he loomed over me.  Like crystallized hate in Antarctic chasms, he fixed me with a stare that could murder a penguin.  "Carmen," he snarled, his eyes never leaving mine.  "This guy with you?"

"Yeah, he's cool," came her voice from the table.  It felt so far away.

I could see the contempt in his movements as he poured my drink, sat it on a coaster, and pushed it to me with two fingertips.  He leaned down, his weathered visage inches from mine.  "Yeh listen to me, boy," he growled.  "This is the last fookin' Stoli Raz and soda yeh ever fookin' order from me."  His forehead rippled as he arched a brow.  "D'yeh fookin' understand?"

I nodded mutely as I accepted my drink and left a ten-spot on the stick.  Carmen and Jess were making no effort to hide their laughter as I joined them.

It wasn't long before we needed another round.  Up I went, and once again Barry intoned his question from beneath his dour scowl.  "What're yeh havin'?"

"Bud and a Maker's," I said, my face studiously neutral.

And like the breaking of a thunderstorm, Barry beamed at me, crow's feet like a sunny day and teeth like ancient tombstones.  "Now that's more fookin' like it!"

And thus began a beautiful, beautiful friendship.

On motherfucking traffic circles.

How the fuck hard is this fucking concept to understand, you fucking-ass motherfuckers?

People not in the fucking circle yield to the fucking people in the fucking circle.

Look, the fucking fuckfaces even have fucking yield signs.

THAT MEANS YOU FUCKTARDED FUCKBAKES KEEP FUCKING DRIVING YOU SHIT ASS BALLS MOTHERFUCKING DICKFUCK FUCKERS

On my personal Food Prep Day.

Today was Food Prep Day here at Chateau Raoul.  It's something I like to do when I've got a day off to just relax and figure out what I'm making for myself for the upcoming week.  It stems from a mild neurosis of mine; I always feel squidgy about busting out the big boy cutting board for just one onion or one bell pepper.  So I tend to just pull out whatever vegetation I've got in my crisper (courtesy of Door to Door Organics), take a good, hard look at my leftover situation, and go nuts.

So today, I:

Washed, stemmed, and sliced into 1" ribbons a bunch of collard greens to be braised tomorrow with chicken thighs.

Washed, stemmed, and cut into 3/4" pieces a bunch of kale.  Don't know exactly what I'm doing with this yet, probably just sautee with a slice or two of bacon and garlic.

Sliced down 8oz. mushrooms.  These poor guys were getting a little old; they'll live on as red wine duxelle.

Sliced down a bunch of scallions.  Because unless you're going to be charring them whole, they're going to be sliced down anyway, yeah?

Diced a yellow bell and half a red bell pepper.  Destined to become pepper relish with some cider vinegar, brown sugar, and scallions.

Julienned the other half of the red bell pepper, to add some color to the collards.

Washed and stemmed two heads of baby bok choy, wrapped in paper towels in a ziplock bag.  These are going into an adaptation of Nilagang Baka that I picked up some short ribs for, and those are going to be soaking in soy sauce and patis come tomorrow.

Diced three Roma tomatoes.  Because no matter what I'm going to wind up doing with them (and I don't know exactly what yet), they're going to need to be diced anyway.

Julienned one onion.  Everything I'm going to be cooking off in the short term will probably get a handful, particularly the chicken braise and the nilaga.

Portioned out and formed patties out of leftover cheddar buttermilk mashed potatoes.  They're in the freezer now so I can bread them (in a mix of breadcrumbs I made out of leftover bread butts and the crumbs at the bottom of tortilla chip bags that are otherwise useless, all pulverized in the food processor) and refreeze them for when I need potato croquettes on the fly.

All of which was done at a leisurely pace over the course of the last two hours or so while listening to Alkaline Trio and watching Scrubs.  Why do I do all of this?  Because sometimes, I come home from work tired and lazy.  And I could pop out for a cheesesteak or order a pizza in.  But if all my veggies are prepped, that shaves massive chunks of time off of cooking a fresh, nutritious meal for myself.

So instead of staring forlornly at the piles of organic vegetation that inevitably go bad because I'm too lazy to take them apart when it's go time, this stuff actually gets used and eaten.  It's the same reason I'll parboil a bunch of potatoes so if I need a quick mash or hash browns, they're ready for me.  Or why I'll freeze cookie dough in little preportioned balls so I can have fresh cookies on the fly.  Or why I always shred a block of cheddar at a time, because when you most want shredded cheese is usually when you're least equipped to shred cheese.

The more work you do ahead of time, the easier you make your life later.  So maybe next time instead of sitting on the couch watching that episode of Downton Abbey, take apart a leek or some celery while you do it.  Your stomach, your wallet, and your sanity will thank you later.

On one of the times I almost died.

It was morning.  Late morning, to be precise.  I remember the sun was in full effect as I loaded up Dave's car.

Dave was my boss at the flower shop I delivered for.  He'd called me in, said we were swamped, asked if I could help run some extra deliveries.  Said I could use his Jeep, since the other kid was using the van.  It was old hat to me by now; grab the addresses, plot them out on the map.  Piece of cake.

Late morning, easy run.  I was smiling, listening to Howard Stern talking about something or other as I cruised down one of those Jersey highways that wasn't really a highway, just a regular road that the state was too lazy to name.  The first drop was at an honest-to-God nunnery, and that was hilarious to me.

But I hadn't been paying attention, and I'd been speeding.  Because that's what I did.  I was young and cocky and careless, and I had everything under control.  Maybe I'd passed it?  I probably passed it.  I hit the left-side blinker, keeping my eyes peeled for a good street to turn around on.  My eyes drifted to the rear view, taking note but not paying too much mind to the red Jetta behind me.

And there it was.  Right there on the right.

I jammed on the brakes, flicked the turn signal.  A little corner of my mind told me 45mph was too fast to cut the wheel, but, I mean, I was already doing it.  May as well, yeah?

I felt the Jeep slide.  That's the shitty thing about these highways, all the gravel on the sides.  I could hear the grind of the wheels as they tried to find a grip, as my foot pumped the brakes to try to get a little traction.  And with a crunch, I felt the Jetta hit me in the sweet spot, right in front of the rear wheel well.

I could feel the car.  It's an odd sensation, suddenly becoming aware of your vehicle as if it were your own body, translating each little detail of your own sensory input into how the car is moving, what its angle is, how strong its momentum.  The slide became a push, and in half a breath's time, I realized something.

This was out of my control.  Nothing I did would matter at this point; the situation was out of my hands.  Everything I'd learned up until this point said I should find this moment terrifying, that my heart should beat out of my chest as the laws of physics took over.  But I felt free.  Relaxed.  Calm.  I felt my hands slip from the steering wheel, I felt myself relax in my seat.  I felt the corners of my mouth curl up because hey.  A bang, not a whimper.

Time didn't slow down like the movies or books tell you.  It was all in real time, the jerk as the Jeep tipped, the crunching of metal as the world spun, the lurching thump as the car landed back on its tires.  In an instant, the world had exploded in rose petals and glass.

I blinked a couple of times, staring at how the windshield had folded inward, aiming a vicious point at my throat.  There was a silence in the air, a tranquil quiet tickled with the windchime tinkle of broken glass every time I moved.  My left hand hurt, but I couldn't see why.

Slowly, carefully, I pulled the pack of cigarettes from my pocket, dug out my lighter.  With the shhhink of my Zippo, I took my first deep breath.  My thumb found the seatbelt catch, my fingers tried the door.  When it didn't budge, I found myself chuckling as I shifted my weight to kick it open.

And the chuckling didn't stop as I got a good look at Dave's Jeep.  The entire driver's side was smashed in from the roll.  If I hadn't been wearing my seatbelt, the windshield would have taken my head off.  If my arms had been on the steering wheel, one or both would have been crushed in the crash.  I ran my fingers through my hair, watching the broken glass and flower petals fall to the ground.

The Jetta's front corner was looking a little worse for the wear, and the driver had his head down, his breathing ragged and strained.  "Smoke?" I said with a grin.  He shook his head as he looked up.  I could see the abrasions on the insides of his arms from the airbag.  It wasn't until then that I noticed the blood dripping from my fingers.

"Did you... flip?"

"Yep."

The rest is kind of hazy.  The look on the paramedics' faces when they saw Dave's car, the disappointment when they realized I only had a couple of minor cuts on my left hand.  The cops asking questions.  The tow truck bringing me back to town.

I had called Dave, my voice shaking as I apologized.  "I'm sorry, Dave, I'm so sorry."

"I know, Raoul.  If I didn't think you were, I'd have fired you by now."

Good guy, that Dave.  Turns out he had good insurance, too.  As for me, there were still deliveries to be made.  He'd offered to give me the afternoon off, but I refused.

As I loaded up the van that afternoon, Pavel and Pericles came running from the house across the street, hitting me up for a ride to class.  They hopped in, and as I pulled away from the curb, Pavel pointed to the gauze wrapped around my hand.

"What happened?"

"Flipped a car over this morning."

Silence.

Then Per, shouting from the back.  "LET ME OUT."

I laughed as I headed down to College Ave.

On the principles of good fried chicken, part 2.

Aaaaaand as promised, here's part two of Sunday's discourse on the finest food this life has to offer: fried chicken.

Let's talk chicken pieces.  Out of all the cuts that can be derived from our feathery friend, my stock and standard is the thigh, minus the pelvic bone.  Easily acquired in bulk at your local supermarket, easily skinned, very simple to manage.

Why the thigh?  First off, the only parts of its body the modern farm chicken even comes close to using are its legs.  That means the thigh and leg have the deepest chickeny flavor out of all the pieces.  As for construction, I mentioned earlier that the ideal piece of fried chicken has proper meat-to-crust consistency.  That means the drumstick is out (besides, it's got that tendon that always gets stuck in your teeth).  The breast is all sorts of misshapen and you lose half your crust to the ribcage anyway.  And wings?  Are you serious?  Trying to southern-fry a chicken wing results in a sad, overcooked wad of meat clinging to a bones that make up 30-50% of the thing's mass.  Not worth it.  No, if you want a proper piece of fried chicken, look no further than the chicken thigh.  It has the second-highest meat-to-bone ratio and just the right amount of collagen.

Yes, collagen.  It's not just for pulled pork, you know.  That magical connective tissue that dissolves into gelatin with sustained exposure to heat.  It's this, combined with the thigh's natural fat content, that makes this particular cut less likely to dry out in the crucible of your skillet.  Still, as with any brutally high-contact cooking method, you'll need as much moisture insurance as you can get.  Which is why brining, that newfangled prep technique everyone's been talking about, is never a bad idea for any relatively short-term dry heat cooking.

Brining works through some pretty fundamental hydration principles, using capillary action to draw salinated water into the muscle tissue (think of it as meat-irrigation).  What this means is that not only are you hydrating the meat before cooking, you're also allowing flavonoids in the brine to infiltrate the meat, seasoning and flavoring your working materials before it even meets the heat.  Of course, this act is essentially meaningless for things like soups, stews, and braises (because you're doing that anyway during the cooking process), but for roasting, sauteeing, and frying, it's a good way to prevent dehydration and uneven seasoning.  So if you've got the time, brine your chicken before you fry.  You won't regret it.

So you've got your meat prepped, your crust has been properly addressed.  It's time to cook.  The most basic conundrum with frying anything is and always will be getting your protein to the right temperature without burning your crust.  You can find cooking times and oil temperatures aplenty on the interweb, but rest assured, the only way to get the right time and the right temperature on your particular range is practice.  It's just the way it is.  That being said, to what temperature should you bring your chicken?  Well, let's look at it clinically.  Salmonella, by far and away the most common chicken-borne illness, dies at 167F (75C).  And as someone who has had the horrific experience of having salmonella, I strongly advise you to surpass this temperature to avoid the week-long cataclysmic two-point eruption that is this baneful infection.  I'm serious.  Sure, carryover cooking can buy you a couple of degrees of leeway, but with pieces of meat this small, you cannot count on the same 5-15 degree buffer larger cuts afford.  Take it to 167, then get it out of the oil.

Why not be safer and keep going until you hit 175 or 185?  Of course you could do this, and it's probably a pretty good idea from a safety standpoint.  But the longer and hotter you cook proteins, the more they bunch up, squeezing out all that moisture you worked so hard to inundate your meat with like a wrought sponge.  And not only is that moisture going to leak out of your meat, it's going to leak into your crust.  So use your judgement.

Which brings me to my final point.  Let your fried chicken rest.  Resting is an extremely important part of the process.  Not only are you letting the excess grease drip away, you're letting the proteins of your freshly-abused meatstuffs relax, enabling it to reabsorb some of the moisture it's been clenching out of itself.  Plus you're enabling temperature equilibrium, which is always nice.  And you're not biting into a 180 degree chunk of lava-like moistness, which is also always nice.

Woo.  Okay.  I think I'm done.  I hope those of you who've managed to stick it out this far have found something useful and/or informative.  I'm gonna go back to making fart jokes on Twitter now.

Cheers, guys.  See you tomorrow.

On going meta.

So if I post a blog about being so tired and braindead after work that I don't have the energy to blog, that still counts as blogging, right?

Did I just blow your mind?

Okay, okay.  Instead of a real blog, here's what you guys have to look forward to in the coming days.
- MOAR FRIED CHICKEN TALK seriously, gotta wrap that shit up.
- The time I flipped a flower van over.
- Standard responses, and why they're usually lies.

Onward and upward, bitches.  A demain.

On the principles of good fried chicken, part 1.

I might have mentioned before that I'm a pretty big fan of fried chicken.  It's not just a food item to me anymore; it's a totem, a fetish, something I've spent more time thinking about than my finances (which speaks either to my obsession with fried chicken or my massively irresponsible approach to money.  Either and/or both).  I've woken up in the middle of the night with the impulse and walked to the corner store to pick up a quart of buttermilk to get some prepped for the next day.  I told myself I was going to pick up some Popeye's today, and to prepare for it, I ordered some for dinner last night.

So yes.  Mildly obsessed.  And one of the reasons it's so easy to be obsessed with it is it's friggin' everywhere here in the states.  It's at the deli counter, it's in the freezer section.  It's at the haute cuisine restaurants in the hearts of our cities and the fast food joints peppering the suburbs.  And for every place that gets it right, there's about six that get it completely wrong.

Over the years, I started picking apart what I look for in good fried chicken.  A crispy crust that holds its crunch over time.  Moist, flavorful meat.  Sounds like basic principles, easy to carry out.  Why, then, do so many places fall short?  Whether it's dry, flavorless flesh or soggy, tepid crust, it's incredibly easy to fuck up fried chicken.

The crust.  Crunchy, but not tooth-shatteringly so.  Flavorful in its own right.  It should adhere to the chicken itself; it should provide an even distribution so that each bite is a careful balance of meat and crust.  And above all, when bitten into, it should cleave to your teeth.  Nothing's sadder than biting into a piece of fried chicken and coming away with half the crust dangling from your lips.

The crunch is easy enough to address once you understand the principles behind what makes something crunchy and what makes something soft.  Restaurant standard breading procedure (flour dredge, egg wash, bread crumbs) falls short here, particularly when working with bone-in chicken.  For one, the bread crumbs will burn, since they are, unsurprisingly, made of already-baked bread.  This means the flour within is already cooked, and a hair's breadth away from burning when exposed to hot oil for the fifteen minutes or so it'll take for the chicken to cook through.  Furthermore, whole eggs aren't the smartest idea.  Ever bite into a brioche?  Wonder why it's so soft and pillowy?  It's because the fat content from the yolks prevent it from getting crusty and chewy.  Egg whites, on the other hand, are primarily protein, which makes for an excellent snap when properly fried; it's why it's a standby in tempura and other batter-based frying techniques.

While it's generally accepted that cornstarch adds crunch and flour adds weight, there's still the question of panko.  Produced by basically wizardry, these flaky breadcrumbs are crisped without further toasting, keeping them an arm's length from the aforementioned burning problem.  However, since it's still a finished product, it will still burn earlier than straight raw flours.  Use with caution when frying whole pieces.

As to the pull-away conundrum, I've found that, most often, the biggest culprit is (and brace yourself for a little blasphemy) the skin.  Think about it.  Cooked, it comes away from the meat in one big chunk of fried, leaving behind nothing but bare meat and broken dreams.  And yes, chicken skin is insanely delicious.  But it's delicious when it's exposed directly to heat; buried as it is under your carefully constructed crust, it becomes pallid and rubbery.  This is why I usually skin my chicken beforehand, season said skin, dredge it in a little cornstarch, and use it to test the frying oil.  Also I eat it while I'm cooking.

One of the key points in fried chicken that consistently gets ignored is how it's treated after it's been fried, and this is a sad, sad thing.  So many recipes call for letting the pieces drain on paper towels, or the more clever paper bag.  Unfortunately, this means your freshly-fried, just-out-of-the-oil chicken is being placed in direct contact with a surface.  This means any juice oozing out of the chicken and any steam coming off of the crust is going to be trapped in direct contact with the crust.  And the enemy of crunch is what, class?  Moisture.  Me, I like to let air circulate around the chicken during its rest.  That means a cooling rack over a sheet pan on the counter.

Why not in the oven to keep it warm slash finish cooking?  Because your standard gas oven runs on natural gas, or methane (CH4).  And said methane combusts using oxygen.  And that looks a little something like this:

CH4 + 2O2 -> CO2 + 2H2O

That's right, water vapor.  And as I mentioned before, moisture is the enemy.  And yes, electric ovens don't have this issue, but you're still stuffing your freshly-fried chicken in a necessarily air-tight chamber.  Circulation is the name of the game here, and you're not going to get that in a closed space.

All right, this post is getting way too big for its britches.  Swing on by over here for part 2!

On a coule of quick words of wisdom.

If it's one thing I've learned from a decade or so of taking cooking seriously, one little nubbin of information that I hold in reverence over all else that I have learned, it is this:

If it smells funny, don't eat it.

Seriously.  We as humans have evolved to the point where our nose has no problem letting us know when we shouldn't be eating something.  Let evolution do its thing, people.  If you have to think about it, you already know the answer.

Now if anyone needs me, I'm going back to the couch to lie down in discomfort while drinking plenty of fluids.

On the mutation of dreams.

I was reading a fellow BiSCuit's blog entry the other day about doing big things.  It touched a nerve, I think, in that way that seeing a dirty plate on a restaurant table reminds that you were going to do the dishes two days go.  There were days, days not too long ago in the grand scheme of things, that I, too, wanted to do big things.  I was going to be a modern poet, bring back formal poetry to the internet generation.  I was going to go to grad school, become a professor, wear sportcoats with elbow patches.  But that dream died when I finished my undergrad, when I sat and tried to write and never could really follow through.  And how do you get a job as a poet?  What kind of ass-brained idea was that?

I dreamed then of becoming a chef, of working the kitchens of the famous and cutting edge, mastering eldritch techniques and innovating the field.  But I am too old to work the line.  I value my sleep too much, my sanity too much.  And as I stepped away from a financial, physical, and emotional investment I'm not comfortable fully disclosing on the intertubes, I realized that my dream of being a quick-service mogul, too, was dead.

But even as these high-falutin' aspirations faded away, others came to the surface.  Just because I no longer feel that burning desire to change the world doesn't mean I don't still have a heart full of dreams.  I want to be the kind of father that makes my kids crack up when they think of me, that can't wait to come home for Thanksgiving break.  I want to run a little soup joint that my neighbors order from when they're too sick to leave the house, where their kids can camp out after school to do their homework.

I don't know what happened.  I wanted something more tangible.  Something I could feel on my skin when someone smiled at me, something I could see in the widening of someone's eyes when they tasted something I created.

My friends are lawyers and scientists, programmers and executives.  There was a time when I looked upon their works and despaired, thrashed myself for not having their ambition or work ethic.  But I don't want their lives.  I want to be the name on their Gchat list they click on when they need advice.  I want to be the door they knock on when they need to get away.

Is it better to be loved by millions of strangers or a select few that really matter in your life?  Would you rather change the world or hold a community together?  Did we really lose these parts of ourselves, or have they simply grown and aged and changed with us?

Do I dream smaller now, or do I just dream different?

On happy feels.

Heya, guys!  Keeping it short today, as I've got Valentine's plans with myself that involve me getting very intoxicated very quickly.  And no, it's not funny when I write intoxicated; it's just dumb.

While talking to Laur the other day, I realized something.  I'm happy again.  After years of misery and mope, I'm hitting my stride, waking up with a smile on my face, and being insufferably cheery to those unfortunate enough to cross my path.  I'd almost forgotten what it was like to have confidence and to grin for no good reason.

Don't get me wrong; not everything's sunshine and bunnies.  I still have a ballsload of shit to take care of.  I still have to quit smoking, get myself back into some semblance of shape.  But I'm back.

And damn, does it feel good.

Happy Valentine's Day, y'all.  High fives all around.

On New York.

I miss you, New York.

I was a wide-eyed kid when we started; riding, as I always have, on the coat-tails of my friends.  We moved into that shitty little apartment over the Knitting Factory; I spent my nights feeling the bass in my teeth as I slept over the main stage.  Dove into you headfirst, snapping up the first job I could tending bar in the neighborhood rathole, getting drunk, getting my friends drunk, making new friends getting drunk.  What else was I supposed to do?  Mom was gone; I had a fistful of cash, a head of falsely blond hair and zero ambition.

I needed to be consumed, and you swallowed me whole.  I needed to burn, and you made me a torch.  I made all the bad calls, I dated all the wrong women.  I slept on a church pew, I slept in a pile of money.  I was covered in sewage, someone else's shit, someone else's blood.  I spent my nights banging shots and riding rails; I woke up in neighborhoods I didn't recognize.  I walked the Brooklyn Bridge with a bottle of Bushmills, praying for the strength to jump.  I grew hard and angry, beautifully scarred.  And when I left, broke and broken, it wasn't because you had no more that I could take, it was because I had no more left to give.

And I wonder what I left behind.  Sal's dead.  Billy's dead.  I don't know what happened to Elizabeth or Barry or Steve.  Jason moved on, and darling Sue is at long last happy.  I wonder if you still remember me, New York.  If you still love me the way you did.  You probably don't.

I'm different now.  I lead a life of cats and couches and video games.  I pay my taxes.  I mow my lawn.  But I remember the thunder of my boots on the pavement. Glass in my hands and cigarettes clamped in my teeth. Looking over the city from roofdecks with scraped knuckles and burning eyes.

If what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, then I am immortal.  I am shards of wisdom and mistakes pasted together with whisky and lies.  I am stories long forgotten, experiences shared with people that don't exist anymore.  When I set foot in your streets again, I feel stronger, sharper.  Better than I am, wiser than I once was.

I love you, New York.  I always will.

On having a zeroed-out day.

Something about today killed my brain.

I don't really know what it was.  Pretty uneventful day at work, maybe some vague dissatisfaction at the reveal of next week's schedule (I'm at the heavier-trafficked location and closing a great deal, which means a lot of cleaning).  A phenomenal lunch with the ex (we hit up Handy Nasty for double cooked fish and dan dan noodles), followed by an afternoon and early evening of watching Community and minding the beasts.

At the end of it, I've got nothing.  I want to write, I have a couple of topics I'd love to write about, but the words just aren't coming.  I'm up in a couple of other places I need to fire off a post or two, and my fiction muscles are seizing up.

I even tried to think about food I wanted to write about, and nada.

So yeah, I don't know what it is about today.  I'm a muted version of myself.  A self that isn't creative.  A self that doesn't really feel like consuming the media it usually enjoys.  A self that isn't hungry, both physically and metaphorically.

If I felt like this all the time, would I be okay with it because I didn't know what it was like to not be like this?  Or would this nameless, nagging dissatisfaction linger in the back of my head my entire life?

More importantly, will I wake up tomorrow feeling like I do right now?

On where to eat if you're ever in Philly, part 2. Sandwiches and ethnic cuisine.

Continuing on from yesterday's post!  Don't worry, this'll be the last one for a little while.  I could babble about food for long enough to turn this into a food blog, and that's not the point of this exercise.

ANYWAY.

Sandwiches
I should stop here for a second and say something about sandwiches in Philadelphia.  People say 'oh, hey, a sandwich is a sandwich, what's the big deal?', and they should be fucking slapped.  To make a good- no, scratch that, a great sandwich, you have to pay attention to every goddamned detail about it.  And that starts with the bread.  I don't care if you're making something as time-honored and traditional as a muffuletta or you're going haywire with the newfangled stuff at SCRATCHbread, a great sandwich starts with great bread.  And Philly sandwich shops know this.

Which is why DiNic's in the Reading Terminal Market won Adam Richman's Best Sandwich in America.  It's nothing fancy, just roasted pork with sharp provolone and greens.  But each aspect of that sandwich is so carefully balanced and flawlessly executed from the crusty roll to the broccoli rabe that it brought home the crown.

(It should be noted that you shouldn't ignore everything else there; there's some really awesome food at the Market.  For instance, I'm currently having a love affair with a Peking duck place that does duck noodle soup.  Just make the roast pork sandwich a priority.)

And of course, you can't come to Philly without having a cheesesteak.  First thing you need to know is what all the locals know already - Pat's and Gino's are exactly as shitty as each other, and should be avoided at all costs.  Even Tony Luke's, with all its accolades, is just kind of 'meh' on my radar.  For me, I stick to my local joint, Dalessandro's.  I couldn't even tell you what makes me dream about this place.  Maybe it's how the bread is soft, but never soggy.  Or how the beef is fall-apart tender even though it's cooked through.  Or how the cheese just disappears into the meat and marries the crushed hots into one melty, salty, punchy mass that breeds mouthful after mouthful of joy.  Or maybe it's just because I can friggin' walk there if I wanted to.

Honestly, after leaving New York, I never thought I'd find a falafel sandwich that could match up to the little East Village holes in the wall I'd stumble into, drunk and hungry.  But lo and behold, there was Mama's Vegetarian just behind where I was opening the Philly branch of Pure Tacos.  And sweet fancy Moses do they make a ridiculously tasty sandwich.  House-baked pita, freshly-fried falafel, simple, fresh veggies.  It's a humble sandwich, but one that simply cannot be beat.

Ethnic Stuff
Sorry if this section sounds racist, but by now, I'm so hunger-blind that I can't be fucked to come up with a better description of it.

Two years in a row now I've attended La Panarda at Le Virtu.  If you want to know what it is, read this article on it (wherein I am quoted, even if Alex spelled my name wrong).  But past this ricockulous meal, this place serves up handmade pastas and salumi cured in the basement.  I've seen the curing room.  It's the most humidity-controlled wet dream I've ever seen.  Seriously, though, Chef Cicala specializes in the cuisine of a region of Italy not often highlighted (Abruzzese) and not to be missed.  His brodos alone will make you cry.

Speaking of crying, if you're into serious Sichuan cuisine, and I mean serious about it, get your ass to the the most incredible Chinese restaurant with the most hilarious URL: Han Dynasty.  Owner Han Chiang got sick of pulling his punches for you round-eyes, and the result is richly flavorful offerings that, at the higher echelons of the menu, will make you weep fire and spit lava.  The simply, but aptly named 'Spicy Hot Pot' nearly took down my best friend, and he's in the P'Hall of Fame.

Okay.  I gotta stop before I start gnawing on my keyboard.  I had some high expectations moving here, considering I'd left the vast culinary playground of NYC only a couple of years before, but Philly's really stepped up their game.  It's quickly turning into a hell of an eating city, and I'm sure I'll be back on this subject as I explore my new home.

Cheers, guys!  See you tomorrow.

On where to eat if you're ever in Philly, part 1. Fried chicken and burgers.

An online buddy of mine just asked me where to eat in Philly while he's in town.  Seeing as how I've only been here for a little over a year, I was kind of shocked at just how many recommendations I was able to rattle off the top of my head.  I really do love food, I guess.  Which is possibly the most obvious statement I've said today, and that's including "this is a grande mug".  So hey, if you guys are ever in my neck of the woods...


Fried Chicken
I've been on a serious Korean-style fried chicken kick lately.  Don't really know why, but right now, batter-fried chicken tossed in a sweet, garlicky glaze is really doing it for me.  To that end, Cafe Soho does it right, serving up piles of totally scarfable wings.  Bring friends so you can sample a bunch of their flavors.

While I'm at it, Federal Donuts puts out some crazy K-style chicken, too.  Their glazes are pretty traditional, but their dry seasonings are distinctively stateside.  They only do limited batches, though, so get there early.  Also, while you're there, get some goddamned donuts.  The 'fancy' donuts are pretty damn tasty, but their made-to-orders are really where it's at.  Their fresh donuts are better than 63.8% of the oral sex I've had in my lifetime.

If you're looking for a truly unique fried chicken experience, hit up Supper on a Tuesday for their pastrami fried chicken.  It's exactly what it fucking sounds like.  They brine-cure their chicken like pastrami, then fry those fuckers.  The end result, for a fried chicken devotee, is what I imagine reaching Nirvana is like; I think audio cut out of my sensory array for a good two minutes after my first bite.  Supper also makes a retardedly delicious brunch if you're into that sort of thing - the mushroom toast is sublime.  No idea what their regular dinner menu tastes like.

Burgers
Yeah, we have a Shake Shack here.  And while I clearly enjoy Shake Shack, I just can't take them seriously when Village Whiskey is right across the street.  Seriously.  Short rib and cheddar duck fat fries?  How can you not want to just shove your face into the words on the menu until the plate arrives for you to shove your face into?  Add to that a thick, perfectly-cooked burger that makes rivulets of juice and grease run over your fingers, and you'll understand what I'm talking about.  I highly recommend the truffled mushrooms.

Of course, if you're ballin' on a budget, an incredible burger shouldn't be out of your reach.  And at Sketch Burger, it's not.  These guys are a perfect example of what happens when a place concentrates on doing one thing right - their burger and fries combo is unearthly.  The phrase that'll wind up running through your head for the remainder of the day will simply be "Damn.  That was a good burger."  It will stick in your mind, like food herpes.


All right, that's enough for now; I can feel my brain getting squishy.  No real excuse there, just a little on the tired side for today.  I'll be back tomorrow; I've got a stack of recommendations still to come.  Hasta manana, kids.

UPDATE: Part 2 of this post is available hya.

On being good at what you do.

I just closed out my second week at my new job, and I was told by a manager, the husband of one of my coworkers, and two separate regulars over the course of my shift that I had a reputation already.  One for constantly being on the ball, for holding steady when we're in the weeds, for having a knack for knowing what the team needs before we run out.

All of which is really nice to hear, considering this is the first cafe job I've ever worked, and I tend to remember the giant pot of coffee I put on with the spigot in constant-pour mode, or how I can never seem to grind a pounder without losing an ounce to spillage.  Seriously, I can't get the damn thing off the spout without sending grounds friggin' everywhere.

And I know I shouldn't be all that proud, either.  The place is so well-organized and labeled that keeping up with par stock and rotating materials is out and out mindless.  Everything else is Service Industry 101 - a smile and a warm greeting, fast hands, sharp short-term memory.  Work clean, don't stand still.  All crap I picked up in my first two months of bartending a decade ago.

Still, it feels good.  Particularly because I spent the last two years immersed in a job I was terrible at.  I bought into a restaurant concept, and almost immediately, my two partners just disappeared into the woodwork, leaving my dumb-ass, minority-shareholder-by-a-wide-margin self to run the locations.  And when I say I was woefully ill-equipped to do so, I'm not exaggerating.  I had zero experience with accounting, no concept of the cornucopia of federal and state taxes I needed to pay.  I'm a soft touch with underlings, which leads to a happy, lazy, exploitative staff.

But I forged ahead, failure after failure, determined to steer this ship into clear waters.  I hammered out food costs, shopped for vendors, reworked recipes and processes over and over again.  Printed paychecks and hand-delivered them.  Ran materials back and forth between shops.  Good Lord, I was miserable.  My blood pressure and cholesterol spiked, I picked up smoking again.  I passively-aggressively antagonized my (now ex-)wife, I stopped responding to my friends calling me out to hang.  And I couldn't even take joy in what I was doing on a daily basis, because I fucking sucked at it.

Which brings me, after five paragraphs of masturbation and tears (it's like Tuesday!), to my point.  It's important to do something that you're good at, something you really enjoy doing.  Running this company, I buried myself in video games.  Now, I actually like getting up and getting in there to wreck shit up.  Maybe for you, it's acting.  Maybe for you, it's welding things to your neighbor's car while they sleep.  Maybe for you, it's banging dudes with neckbeards.  Whatever it is that gives your ego a shot in the arm, make sure you make it happen on a regular basis.  Because it's so easy to get trampled out there, so easy to forget there's a reason to keep your head up.  Whatever it is that gets you to make eye contact with yourself in the mirror and smile that cocky half-smile, get your ass out there and do it.

On almost dying.

I woke up today feeling rotten.  Headache, nausea, the whole shebang.  Of course, I didn't think much of it, considering I'd helped my dear associates down the block knock out a few bottles of wine last night.  I did my usual day-off morning ritual of loafing about and surfing the web for a while before getting out of bed.

Still felt like ass by the time I stumbled downstairs, two bustling cats darting between my feet like minnows.  I could feel my head twinge as I grabbed their food from the fridge, and as I righted myself, I could smell a very familiar scent in the air.

Gas.

My stove was on.  Just one burner, set to low.  I knew what was last on that burner - risotto, that I had kept on low to keep warm.  At 7pm.  The previous night.  Which meant I'd had gas leaking in my house for 14 hours.

As I set to opening all the windows of my house, I tried to think of the deeper implications of this - how we must take responsibility of our environment, how fragile our lives really are and how we must take caution.  But the truth is, when you think about it, we're this close to being dead at any given point in time.  Sure, some of us are closer than others, but for all our posturing and preparation, do you ever really know when your time is up?

No sense in thinking too hard about it.  No sense in letting that fear paralyze you, in letting it keep you from going out there and doing your day to day.

So no revelations today.  No bursts of insight into mortality.  I'm just going to shake it off and carry on.  And pay a little closer attention to my stove.

That being said, this is pretty damn funny.  Cheers, bitches.

On a very specific frustration.

Every year for Thanksgiving, my family has a tradition of burning our timeshares and trotting off to some random location in the continental US to spend a week together.  Every year, my brothers and my aunt gather up our loved ones and converge for seven days of local exploration, museum trips, and video games.  It's one of the highlights of my year.  But I'll get into that at a later date.

Thing is, my family is under the misguided impression that since I spent a couple of semesters at a culinary school, I'm usually on deck for the sides.  For which I'm totally not complaining.  You have to try really hard to make me happier than when I'm cooking a metric ass-ton of food for people I love.  The sad thing is, there is one dish that is my truest weakness.  One dish that has, over years of trial and error, become my nemesis.

Stuffing.

(or dressing, if you want to get technical.)

The worst part about it is I know what I'm looking for.  Proper stuffing has the crunch of panzanella on top and the spongy silkiness of bread pudding beneath.  It's rich with savory flavor, whether it's punched up with herbs or bolstered by pork.  It shouldn't be hard to achieve.

But no.  Due to my stubbornness and refusal to stick to recipes, I can never get the Bast-damned liquid content right.  Either I swamp the damn dish and we wind up with bread soup or I short it and the fam is gnawing through chewy bread cubes studded with vegetation.

What's worse is my inability to grasp this aspect of stuffing makes me question everything else about it.  My last attempt had chorizo, bacon, and cheese in the mix and I still salted that motherfucker.  I mean, what the shit.  That's some rookie-ass bonage right there.  When something rattles you, it can throw you off your game.  It's like missing a cakewalk side pocket shot and losing your ability to bank for the entire rest of the damn match.  Or your partner murmuring to you that you're using too much teeth while kissing and you suddenly forget how to fuck.

And I know, the best way to get over the hump is to sack up, pull up Alton's recipe, grab a measuring cup and eat stuffing for two weeks straight until I get the damn thing down pat.  I just have to push past my pride and get the job done.

Once more, with feeling.

Push past my pride.

Get the job done.

On my own selfishness.

If you're here, it won't be because of a direct link.

I spoke not too long ago about self-hatred, about how there are aspects of myself that I genuinely loathe.  I've lived a less-than-upstanding life, you see.  I've been weak, been cruel.  I've done things I'm deeply ashamed of, things I've often thought about, but never really talked about at length.

But I started this blog in an attempt to try to get to an honest place.  And to do that, I think I need to state these things in public so I can face them, learn from them, and move on.

So no, I won't be posting links to this post in my usual social media holes.  In part to protect the parties mentioned, but mostly because to be honest, this is more for me than it is for you.

I tortured someone for being better than me.  Growing up, I was always the natural target.  Weird kid with the glasses wearing his brothers' hand-me-downs.  Shitty at sports, skinny, short - I was really easy to pick on.  All I really had going for me was the fact that I was smart.  So I pinned a lot of my pride on that point.  Got through the basketballs to the head and the getting my books knocked out of my hands with a false sense of superiority.  I truly believed that even though I was just an above-average academic performer, I really was the most mentally agile kid in school.

Until, of course, Scott showed up.  He was a year behind me, part of the gifted and talented program like me.  Good kid; soft-spoken and kind.  Awkward in a way that I felt an immediate kinship.  And he was better.  Two years ahead in math to my one.  Consistently tested higher.  He was the first person I can remember who was very clearly more intelligent than I was.

So I bullied the shit out of him.  Used my linguistic skills to constantly deride him, to pound him into the dirt with invective and mockery until he sat sullen and dejected in the back of the short bus.  I used everything in my arsenal to make him feel as small as possible.  Just as the jocks and cool kids beat me down, I did everything in my power to try to break his spirit.  Just because he was brilliant.

I dumped my girlfriend with a roll of toilet paper.  I'd been dating K for a year and change.  I'll never forget the girl; she will always remain burned in my mind as my first true love.  We're still good friends today, despite the miles of shit we put each other through.  We just had to not talk to each other for a year or two before we could get there.

Anyway, one cold winter party, she'd gotten drunk and passed out early.  In the consequent hour, I started getting fresh with another member of our crew, which turned into a surreptitious agreement to head back to her place.  Now, here's where things get extra-scummy.  Before I left, I swiped the closest writing surface I could find (a roll of toilet paper), and wrote a tersely-worded note to K breaking up with her, which I left draped on the floor of our shitty attic room before I trotted off for a sub-par hookup.

While a reprehensible act in and of itself, the weight of this action might not be immediately evident.  See, up until this point, I had never cheated on a girlfriend.  So in order to preserve my perfect record, I just broke up with my girlfriend instead.  Using a roll of toilet paper.  Because somehow, that was the more honorable thing to do.

I betrayed my best friend for my own self-gain.  Band elections were coming up.  For some reason, my best friend and I had decided to both run for president; he was first-chair trumpet, I was first-chair tenor sax.  It seemed like a classic woodwinds vs. brass rivalry.  And, of course, it was as meaningful as being in the Model UN - it was a popularity contest on a ridiculously small scale.

So we made a pact.  For our speeches, we agreed to just stand up at the podium, say "Hi, my name is [blank], vote for me." and be done with it.  He went first, smiled, said his line, and stepped down.  I got up, and I delivered a speech.  I don't know what happened.  Something clicked in my head that I wanted to win this thing, so I just stabbed the one guy who'd stood up for me during my long and pettily painful school years in the back without a second thought.

And he knew it, too.  He only gave it a hurt-sounding "What's the deal, man?" before it was dropped, but it was there.  The joke was on me, anyway; he had the percussion vote in his pocket, and he walked with the win anyway.

This is why I don't trust myself.  Because for one moment, when the stakes were so meaninglessly low, I turned on my most loyal and trusted friend in an attempt at a cheap win.  Because no matter how many years of meaningful conversations and presence there can be between myself and my friends, no matter how deeply rooted someone may be in my heart, I have proven to myself that I can turn on them for nothing.

Realizations like this haunt you.  The guilt sits like stale water in your chest.  I am a bully.  A cheater.  A traitor.  And I am so much more, so much more than I've admitted here.

It is not a good feeling.  And it's all I can do to keep myself from being those things ever again.

Recipe break. Crostini.

At some point in time, probably during culinary, I turned into a bit of a prepper.  When my potatoes are starting to feel squishy, I'll dice and par-boil them.  If I only need a little bit of onion, I'll go ahead and julienne or dice the rest.  I shred out a quart container of cheese at a go because I've discovered that when you most need shredded cheese is usually when you're least motivated to shred cheese.

Anyway, since I live alone, I've gotten used to the idea that any bread I buy is going to go stale well before I get to eat it.  Some of my partial loaves wind up sliced down, wrapped in plastic and foil, and dropped in the freezer, but most of my baguettes continue their lives as that most sacred of snacky bites: crostini.  And yes, "little toasts" doesn't really sound like a fascinating or complicated subject, but like most simple things, it's startlingly easy to fuck up if you're not paying attention.

It's generally widely accepted that crostini comes from long, thin loaves for obvious reasons - larger loaves stop making little toasts and start making toasts.  Which you may as well just call toasts.  I go back and forth between Italian long loaves (which generate a fine, crumbly, and tender crostini), French baguettes (which make for crisper, smaller, sturdier toasts), and ciabatta lunga (whose chewiness generates the crunchiest and most rigid crisps of the three).  I'd say I base this decision on the application of said crostini, but that's outright bullshit - I use whatever I happen to be walking past when I think "Oh, dude, I need bread."

Today, that's ciabatta lunga.  To begin, slice your bread.

Here is where you can make your first fatal mistakes.  First off, by Epiphron's eyes, make them consistent.  As little as 1/16" can make a significant difference in cooking times, leading to uneven browning.  So unless you like spending the last four minutes of the cooking time picking off the ones that are done from a hot oven, get it together.  Secondly, slice thin.  I shoot for 1/4", but I usually wind up going 5/16" just because I don't have a cutting board with a ruler in it.  I've seen them, they're actually a thing.  I wouldn't advise going too much thicker - 1/2" slices of crostini will just lead to you shattering your jaw and sending pointy shards of toasted bread into the roof of your mouth, and no one wants that.  Well, I might want that, but I'm a sucker for schadenfreude.

Once you've got your bread all sliced down, get yourself a sheet pan fitted with a rack.  The rack is important; you need air flow underneath the crostini if you don't want to have to open the damn oven halfway through and flip them.  Gather what you intend to season and flavor your little toasts with while you're at it.

My standards are salt, pepper, granulated garlic, and canola oil.  You don't really have to use any seasonings at all.  In fact, if you don't, you can use them for both savory and sweet applications.  Take a page from pan au chocolat and melt some dark chocolate on a little toast.  Me, I like to have them ready to be a savory side at the drop of the hat.  Today, you may notice, I'm using a little paprika in addition to my usual suspects, and for a good reason - I'm doing a pile of cleaning and prep today, and you can smell paprika as it's cooking.  Which means I'll have a three-minute window between when I can smell it and when the oven timer goes off to wrap up what I'm doing and wash my hands.

Of note is the oil.  You really shouldn't skip it.  Oil acts as a heat conductor and actually fries the bread, aiding in its dehydration.  You get a much more even browning and consistent toast with it, so don't be lazy.

Anyway, after that, it's pretty straightforward.  With my oven, using ciabatta lunga cut to 5/16" at 400 degrees, it takes 18 minutes for a proper golden brown.  To check, take the tray out of the oven, snag one of the toasts, and poke its underside.  If there is any softness at all, back they go.  THIS IS IMPORTANT.  Mold needs moisture to grow.  So if you want your crostini to have any kind of lifespan, you need to drive out all of the bread's moisture before they go into storage.

Also, keep an eye on them these last few minutes.  Things can go from delicious to burnt in a matter of seconds.

Don't get me wrong, I'm totally going to still eat the one on the right.  Just saying.

Anyway, once they've cooled off completely, you now have a tasty bread product that will live well beyond the original loaf's lifespan.  But where to store it?  Me, I like to use this cookie jar my in-laws gave me a couple of Christmases ago.

Mostly because it looks like Alistair.

But if you don't have a snazzy cookie jar, just toss them in a zip-top bag when they're completely cooled.  Because until then, they still generate steam.  And steam is moisture.  And moisture breeds what, class?

Anyway, now that you have them, what do you do with them?  Anything you damn well please.  They make great accessories to a bowl of soup or a salad you tossed together on the fly.  They're delicious accoutrements to a cheese plate or a collection of cured meats.  A no-brainer for polishing off hummus when your pita chips run dry.  A fast and easy base for canapes if you want to get classy with visiting friends.  I eat two with a shirred egg in the mornings I bother to make myself breakfast.

As for today's batch, I'm going to melt some havarti on them and top them off with some of the chuck roast I've been braising in red wine since just after lunch.  Cheers, kids.

On bartender's conversation.

I'm a service industry man.  I've spent the better part of a decade behind a bar of one variety or another - even now, I'm in week two at my neighborhood cafe as a register grunt slash pastry gopher slash crepe bitch, and I'm loving every second of it.  (Well, the seconds I'm not up to my arms in cleaning chemicals, anyway.)

When it comes down to it, I like people.  Despite my misanthropic rantings and periodic hermitism (I'm getting more introverted as the years wear on), nothing Miltons my Wright like some good old-fashioned banter.  And it's good for business, too.  Everyone wants to feel welcome, everyone wants to feel special.  And taking the time to talk to people works wonders in that respect.

Of course, this means that over the years, I've had to make myself seem far more witty and charming than I actually am.  That's not false modesty, by the way - Raoul in his natural habitat formulates Borderlands character builds complete with projected equipment and sings the harmony to Somewhere Out There (by himself) while fortifying chicken stock for risotto later.

Anyway, I figured I'd toss out a few pointers I've picked up transmogrifying myself into a socially entertaining individual.

If you don't know, don't ask.  If you started paying attention two lines before a story gets a laugh and you don't get why it's funny, you're not a part of it.  Don't ask, don't pry yourself into someone else's conversation.

If you're listening in, don't show it.  If they're talking loud enough for you to overhear while you're washing glasses, it's fair game.  And nothing makes an impact than referring to something that happened fifteen minutes before you met someone.  Sneaky and invasive?  You betcha.  But it works.

Listen with your whole body.  It's more important for them to feel listened to than it is to actually listen.  Turn your body towards them.  Make eye contact.  Lean forward.

Also, actually listen.  You don't have to be able to recite everything they just said back to you, but pick up enough to refer back to two or three lines later.  The best way to make someone feel listened to after the aforementioned display is, in fact, to listen to them.

Learn when to tune out.  Listening to someone drone on and on about something you have zero interest in can get exhausting.  It can also lead to fantasies of slamming the person's head into the bar repeatedly, or giving them a turban wedgie.  Don't do this.  Instead, try a little trick I've learned - nod patiently while they talk, and any time they mention a number, just say "[number]?  Really!" as if you're learning something new.

Don't beat a dead horse.  I know, I know.  The instant you get a big laugh, your first instinct is to try to recreate that laugh.  But like an orgasm, it's gone, and you're never going to get that specific one back no matter how hard and fast you repeat yourself.  So let the comment go, but as quick as you can, give them the chance to repeat it back to you.  Then sit on it for fifteen to thirty minutes and pull the trigger on the last one.  The wait is key - you need for them to have forgotten it just enough so that it takes 0.7 seconds to recall what you're talking about.

That's enough for now, I think.  Especially since someone keeps distracting me with Macklemore videos.  I'll revisit the subject when I think of more of my little tricks.  In the meantime, I have to dance around singing "Thrift Shop" at my cats.

Cheers.

On indulgence.

I just ordered two dozen wings to be delivered to me.  When they arrive, I will sit on my couch and methodically eat them, one by one, well beyond when I am comfortable with myself.

What is it that drives us to do terrible things to our bodies?  Why do we exercise until we vomit, or drink until we vomit, or do pretty much any activity where vomiting marks the end of said activity?  Is it a matter of testing our limits, like at an all-you-can-eat rib joint?  Or is it a sense of indulgence, a need to sublimate our pride as we push ourselves into realms where dignity dares not tread?

Or is it our cry for independence, us saying to the world "Yes, I am going to eat both of these cheesesteaks, and there's nothing you can do about it BECAUSE THIS IS AMERICA"?  Must we break the rules of common sense and decency periodically just to reaffirm our ability to?

I'm actually serious, guys.  Why do we do these things to ourselves?  I've spent the vast majority of my adult life being a hedonist and libertine, and I'm just now realizing I don't really know why.

Any ideas?

On the decline of the white Christian man.

I was reading an article today about Victoria Jackson suggesting a White History Month.  Something about how the white Christian male is in decline, and that's some kind of bad thing or something.  I don't rightly know; most of my racial relations were taught to me by comedians and actual relating to races, so maybe I'm part of that left-wing hippy-dippy 'one world one people' bullshit.  Or maybe I just believe that if you shit in a toilet or other man-made artifice, we're all pretty much on the same page.

What struck me wasn't so much the article itself or the opinion of the former SNL star turned Tea Partier but my reaction to it.  I didn't feel any twinges of outrage or indignance.  Truth be told, I felt pretty indifferent.  I don't really get up in arms about a lot of things - I recognize that racism is alive and well in today's world, and that it's still a serious problem.  I also know it's way better to be a minority these days than it was in the 70's, so I'm not too worried about the way things are going.  So to the notion that Big Whitey is finally falling down to our level, I suppose my reaction is a shrug and another sip of my coffee.

So they're being vilified in today's media, being made fun of in cartoons and on the interwebs.  I can understand getting mad at that; no one likes to be joked about.  But that comes with the territory of being different, and guess what?  You are different from everyone who isn't you.  You're finally catching your turn after centuries of everyone else catching this shit.  I don't even really need to get into this point particularly deeply; I just have to ask you - what's the most racist joke you know?  See?  Everyone's got one because everyone's caught AND slung shit at one point or another.  You think it was a bowl of olives on the toilet to get called a chink?  That's not even the right slur for my race.

I suppose what I'm getting at is relax, white Christian male.  It's not so bad here in the pool.  You'll still get to vote, same as the rest of us.  You just don't get dibs on the good parking spots anymore.

On why I play so much damn Rock Band.

I play way too much Rock Band.  This isn't a subjective observation, I genuinely do.  I've shoveled hundreds, possibly thousands of hours into this game since the first one came out in 2007, and that's not even including the time I sank into Guitar Heroes 2 and 3.  I've played it so much that I've gotten friend who've never even picked up a controller sick of it.  Roommates and significant others of days past still shake their head when the game is mentioned.

Thing is, despite the mountains of shame heaped upon me by my associates, I'm not going to stop any time soon.  I've had plenty of time to ponder why I play this silly little game so much (and it is, when it comes down to it, just that) - I'm not obsessed with it the way I get obsessed over other games like Borderlands or Mass Effect, I'm not crazed about it the way I am with sandwiches or hedgehogs.  It's just my go-to activity when I have time to kill, or when I need a quick pick-me-up or a jump start to my day.

It got me thinking about my relationship with music.  I've always been surrounded by it, whether it was learning to sing the Beatles with my dad or listening to my aunt play hymnals on the piano.  I spent my high school days in every band permutation MHS had.  Some of my best memories are of hitting the ska shows with my college buddies.  But I'm no expert, no connoisseur of the field; I just enjoy listening to good tunes.  It makes me happy.

And what Rock Band did was take something I enjoyed (music) and put it in a context I had a natural affinity for (games).  It took the songs I loved listening to and let me be a part of them by adding buttons and points.  And the further I delved into the DLC, the deeper my appreciation grew.  I unearthed new aspects of songs I'd loved forever (who ever listens to that funky guitar line in the background of Walk This Way?), explored parts I'd never put much thought into (Nathan Watts, Stevie Wonder's bassist, is fucking insane).  I found new artists to listen to (how have I gone this long without knowing who Jerry Naylor was?) and rediscovered classic songs I never knew the title of (so that's what that Buffalo Springfield song's name is).

And yeah, I probably could have learned to play guitar in the amount of time I've spent on the game.  Probably really, really well by now.  But that's not really the point.  If I wanted to feel connected to the music in that respect, I could just read the sheet music and play it in my head.  It's about feeling the stress of that riff in Thunderstruck and how it builds into the rest of the song.  It's about singing backup on You Got It with my best friend on drunk nights in.  It's about learning the lyrics to Du Hast and trying not to laugh your way through it.

It's about watching my dad smile at my girlfriend and I singing I Want To Hold Your Hand when the cancer took his voice.  It's about my brothers and I feeling like a team for a few hours even if I haven't seen them in months.  It's about getting an entire housewarming party to sing along to Love Shack.

It's about taking two things that I take a real and concrete pleasure in and putting them into one activity that I can enjoy by myself or share with my willing compatriots.  So you know what?  Fuck all y'all; I'm gonna keep doing it.