Slowly

Random

Originally uploaded by heartless jim

Kind of like approaching the edge of something that you haven’t experienced for a while. The park, the mall, the library. It will take some getting used to and small adjustments and in the long run it may be a worthwhile experience.

Garbage Truck etc

Garbage Truck Grabbin.JPG

Got a shot of the new one man garbage truck that waste management has been using in the area. Great concept, works perfect with the new containers when people put the trash inside But when they don’t the driver has empty the full trash container, then get out of the truck throw the rest of the trash into the empty container, get back in the truck and empty that. So there’s a few kinks in the system. And of course it doesn’t help things if there are cars parked in front trash containers. Then for oversized items a regular truck comes buy and picks that up. When we put a hassock out to throw away, the driver came buy emptied the container, tossed the hassock into the container and dumped it again. Then there’s the new plan that may start next year…

Um Saturday Maybe

The tree in the front of the house is dead. The bark is peeling/falling off and the limbs have nothing on them. Hopefully it wont fall on any cars or something like that. Hey there all its been a while. A bunch of things have happened so I couldn’t keep this updated like I wanted to. If ya want to know what happened read my Live Journal I think I posted about it at length in April.

I scribbled some stuff down that I wanted to post here its in my note book. The small loose leaf kind that you actually have to use a writing instrument like a pen or pencil. Remember those? I’ll post that next time around.

I fired up the Weber Kettle Grill Monday to grill,cook, bbq some chicken. About 14lbs or so. I had 10lbs of chicken leg quarters and 4lbs of chicken thighs. First I did a quick brine in the sink. While the chicken was brining I gathered my ingredients for a dry rub. Are yall ready for the list?

I remember using a recipe for a dry rub from Cooks Illustrated BBQ book that I Purchased last year. Didn’t feel like digging that out from one of the boxes so I improvised with what I had on hand. Brown sugar,granulated garlic,cayenne pepper,black pepper,onion powder,paprika,chili powder,poultry seasoning and some salt. Mixed all of that together in a bowl. I eyeballed quantities and tasted it after it was all mixed together and added what I thought it needed.

I then rinsed and patted dry the chicken and put the pieces in zip lock bags. After the chicken parts were placed in the bags I grabbed a spoon and placed an equal amount of the dry rub mixter in ach bag til there was no more in the bowl. Sealed the bags and gave em a good shake and rub then put em all back in the refrigerator. Looked at the time and realized that it was still before noon. Was working against the clock (what else is new) because there was a red flag warning for the afternoon and I wanted to get the food cooked before the conditions got really bad.

Grabbed the charcoal starter chimney thingees,some newspaper,matches charcoal, hickory wood chunks and headed outside to the grill. Once the charcoal was ready I pushed it all to one side for some indirect style of grillin. Yeah I could’ve done the direct method, but cmon now I really didn’t feel like hovering over the grill turning the chicken every few minutes. Plus the backyard seriously lacks shade except for the stairs from the back door.

Did the chicken in batches. I first put the pieces directly over the coals to just get a wee bit of the char going (hmm in hindsight I think I’ll refrain from doing that next time around) and then I moved them over to the spot where there was no charcoal and put the lid on the grill and let em cook. Made sure that I had the digital thermometer so I could check the temperature before pulling the chicken off. When I put the thighs on I added some chunks of hickory,then put the lid on. (note to self..less is more) wow talk about smoke and I didn’t even soak em.

The niece wanted some barbecue sauce on some of the cicken. So I assembed a little pan out of heavy duty aluminum foil. Sprayed some cooking spray in there added some of the bulls eye chipoltle bbq sauce and set it aside. Once the last batch of thighs of were almost done I transfered em to the pan with the sauce, squirted some more on top of the thighs and let them finish off that way.

So how did all of that chicken turn out you may ask? Very good Jim, thats what pops said and the niece and nephew along with sista and mom offered their comments also. Plus the niece and sista threw together some pasta salad. Next time maybe I’ll roast some vegetables, and if the budget allows it maybe some beef ribs.

Yeah nothing random this time around. Maybe next week.

Monday mmmmm…

Each day I walk out the back door or look out the back window into the yard. I look at the Weber kettle charcoal grill. Yeah I know its not even spring yet and I’m already thinking about grillin and barbecue. Yup, I know the grill is sort of ready. I cleaned it up before the end of last years season. There’s a bag and a half of charcoal in the basement and I think there still be some wood chunks leftover somewhere down there.

I figure I would start off with some jerked chicken. Gotta grab a jar of the jerk seasoning paste.I can almost taste those spices. Just get those chicken pieces and put in a zip lock bag and ad a couple of teaspones of the jerk paste and rub it in well using the bag. Or you could use your hands and a mixing bowl, maybe add some sliced green onions and bit of allspice. You can let the chicken marinate for an hour or overnight depending upon how spicy you like it.

Ah yeah firing up that grill and then putting the chicken on indirect heat style so you can relax and let it cook slowly. You can sear for a few minutes over the coals then move them over to side where there aren’t any coals, and put the lid on an let the chicken cook. Maybe toss on to sweet potatoes or plantains to go with the chicken.

Sounds like a plan for one of these days.

Monday Random

The other day I was watching a cooking segment on the Today show. They were roasting a leg of lamb. The chef actually had the butcher de bone the lamb and butterflied it. Then he, the chef seasoned it on the inside then tied it up. Damn that looked good. But when he browned it then slathered it with a roasted garlic and herb paste. Thats when my mouth watered, went into the Homer Simpson full on open mouth drool action. Especially when Al grabbed a knife cut off a good sized slab from the finished roast and just started going to town. Didn’t even wait for the plate. Would love to do a similar type of preparation of lamb. But damn its hella expensive. Will have to wait for a sale on lamb I guess.

That random enough for ya?

Wednesday Fiction

Okay so I didn’t post anything last week. To make up for that here’s another piece of fiction. It started off as a short paragraph/intro for my Sunday live journal post…

Wrong Place

The demons kept on coming, mostly the worst of the worst-the hungry ones. Melcanzathur has been a trying different spells to no avail. Half of the defense force have already been consumed and the other half is still trying to hold the line. The lake of blood that has formed from all of those who have fallen is growing by the minute.
The demons usually chomp off the head of their victims first allowing the blood to spray up into air like a victory fountain. Then they chomp away at the rest of the body finishing up with a loud roar letting others on the line know that they are next. The sounds of skulls being crushed by their massive jaws filled the area drowning out the sounds of everything else, even the incantations yelled by Melcanzathur. I bore witness to this, holding the book of spells for the dying wizard.

There was a pause during the carnage as a downpour came outta nowhere and covered the area in black rain. This distraction was all Melcanzathur needed as he uttered the final incantation and collapsed. I turned around and saw the void change color from dark grey to blue and the demons turned also and uttered a groan so terrible that I thought we were in for an even greater onslaught. Yet I was wrong, the book of spells that I held for the wizard changed into young boy and he looked at the void and whispered…

Return was the word whispered from the young boy who was once the book of spells. The demons roared again but this time the sound was different a higher pitch. The void now blue in color grew wider. The demons began to move forward at a faster pace not even bothering to devour what was left of the defense force. They just seemed to be moving away from the void and no more of their brethren were arriving since the color change. And I finally realized that the demons were heading towards us, yet the young boy stood facing the void. Just as the first of the demons reached the base of the hill we were standing on the…

The young child born from the book of spells looked down towards the hoard and said, your time in this realm has ended. And in a much louder and older voice he once again said return. The demons at that point just faded away and the void slowly disappearred. The only evidence of them having been there was the blood, bones and the moans of the barely alive members of the defense force. As I stood there in shock and exhaustion, the young child turned towards me. And in the tradition of the people of this land, touched his left palm to my right temple and said greetings Jonas of the dark. I was a bit shocked that he greeted me with that title, for to my knowledge only the wizard had greeted me with that title. All others had referred to me as the stranger even after I had introduced myself as Jonas. When the young boy finished his greeting, we both heard a groan and looked over to the fallen wizard Melcanzathur who said…

to be continued

Thursday..um yeah ok

So you pick up a magazine and its pretty good. You like the articles and the other stuff it has for content. You decide to make a commitment. That’s right subscription. No more trekking to your local bookstore, or supermarket to grab the latest issue. Nope it comes to you. Everything is going well, you even decide to renew the subscription. Then you get the letter inserted into one issues. The magazine is ceasing to publish. Which sucks especially for those who just renewed. Now if your lucky the magazine that you subscribed to is part of a company that has more than one magazine offering and they offer to continue your subscription with something else or a refund. This happened to me not once but twice.

So now the current dilemma. Just finished reading an issue of Otaku USA and I really liked it. I am considering subscribing, its a start up and they look like they might actually hang around for a while. Well that’s the same thing I thought when I subscribed to Newstype-USA then this happened. Of course it had to happen just after I renewed my subscription. Then I saw this posting. So now I’ll just wait and see how this replacement magazine works out and regarding Otaku USA.. Hmm I’ll wait a while before I make the commitment. For now it’ll be if I see it on the magazine rack I’ll grab it.

So the last post was a piece of fiction that popped into my head. As I mentioned in on my other postings these things usually come to mind as I walk to the convenience store to grab the morning paper. Still working on a title for it. Maybe something like the Return Of The Beasts…yeah because that’s hella original. Not sure. Got another chapter or paragraph floating around in the head. Maybe I’ll commit it to paper soon.

Random Food Thing

This past Saturday night sista brought home some cube steak. I thought she was going to cook up. Oh no that didn’t happen. She kind of asked me. Usually with cube steak I browned it then braised it for a while in a thick gravy. But since it was kind of to late for that I decided to try something different. Chicken Fried Steak.

Here are the ingredients: flour, onion powder, granulated garlic, paprika, freshly cracked black pepper, a wee bit of salt, four eggs, vegetable oil and shortening.

Since I was pressed for time I really didn’t measure things out. Just did the eyeball it thing. Fill up your cast iron skillet (yeah like everyone has one of those, we don’t even have one anymore) ok well just use a pan that’s deep enough for frying. Or like in our house a wok. Fill your cooking item with vegetable oil and some shortening if you have it. About 2 or three inches worth. Let it heat up. (not sure which temp, did the flour test) when the flour starts a bublin in then you oil is hot. Could’ ve grabbed the thermometer but it was Saturday Night, I was a bit aggravated and just didn’t want to deal with it.

While your oil is heating up preheat your oven to 250 or so. This is just to keep the cooked steak warm Especially if the persons who are planning on consuming said steak decide to head out to the movies whilst you are in the process of cooking. Did I mention that I have to get up hella early to be at work on Sunday Mornings. But I digress. Put some flour in a shallow dish, good sized mixing bowl or zip-lock bag, I used the bag for easy clean up. In another bowl crack your eggs and beat em briefly. Your not scramblin them, you just want them mixed together. Grab another bag and add some flour, a wee bit of salt, onion powder, granulated garlic, paprika, freshly cracked black pepper, and oh yeah some old bay seasoning mix if you have it. Close the bag and mix those ingredients well. This is your seasoned flour mix. Now you are ready.

Hmm I could leave yall hangin like I did last time, but hey I’m on a roll so might as well continue.

Set up an assembly line if you have the space, or make do with what you got like I did. First dredge the steaks in first bag of unseasoned flour. In other words drop em in the bag, close it then shake, turn over and over until the steak is covered with flour. Then open the bag take out the steak shaking off the excess flour and drop in the egg wash (the bowl with the slightly beaten eggs) make sure you get the meat well coated in the egg wash. Then grab the meat once again (tongs come in very handy) and drop it into the bag with the seasoned flour mixture. Close the bag then shake, rattle, and roll the steak (thank ya thank very much) Once the steak is coated with the seasoned flour mixture take it out of the bag, give them a little shake to get rid of the excess and drop them into the oil.

Depending upon the size of your skillet, pan or wok. You may be able to get 3 or four in at a time. Try not to crowd em. Let them cook on one side for a few minutes then turn them over to finish cooking. Usually five to seven minutes for the whole process. Was vaguely watching the time, I just wanted to be done with it so I could watch some telly before the oblivion of sleep hit me. But I digress again. Once your meat is cooked remove from the oil to a paper toweled lined pan or cookie sheet to drain. I usually put a piece of aluminum foil down first then the paper towel. Don’t ask me why, I saw sista doing it when she fried up some fish so I did the same thing with the chicken fried steak.

Place the steak in the oven to stay warm or just serve it after it s drained for a bit. Sista made some gravy later on but I was already watching Torchwood, I think so I wasn’t paying attention to how she prepared the gravy. I did notice a can of beef broth on the counter and some saute’d onions and peppers in a small pan on the stove before she headed out the door.

Speaking of Torchwood and things related, looks like the folks at the have decided to pick up the fourth season of Dr. Who. How cool is that. And as an added bonus they’ve grabbed the Sarah Jane Adventures. Peep the article . Wow Sarah Jane. Talk about blast from the past. I remember those old Doctor Who episodes when they were broadcast on the PBS station outta Boston. Channel 44 I think. Davros, the Daleks, U.N.I.T. , ahhh and K-9. I used to have a poster commemorating the five doctors. Can’t wait for the new season. And I thought BBC America was going to start to show the fourth season new season Torchwood but I was wrong. Oh well.

And this looks like a good spot to end for now. Who knows I might actually get into a routine of updating this spot more often. Next time around maybe I’ll talk about…hey Jim can you cook the fish…yeah that’s right had to cook some talapia and catfish for Ash Wednesday.

Be well citizens.

Monday Fiction

So here’s a little somethin that came to mind the other day.

All that could be seen for miles was the blue zone or what the natives refer to as the forest of souls. We disregarded their warnings and began our harvest. The collectors were working at eighty percent and we were still on schedule. I began to make my report to the base when what looked like crewman Zuens head slammed up against the glass of the module. The scream was frozen on his lips and the rest of his body was gone. I turned around and that’s when I saw the rest of the team being slaughtered by the beasts. All I could do was hit the button that activated the defense zone and pray to the makers that someone, anyone made it inside before all was lost.

Incoming transmission from harvest team alpha.

Put them on screen.

Affirmative

…..You said we would be safe, commander! You said we would be safe! Does this look like safe, does it, screamed First assistant jenson!?

Oh my lord is that crewman Zuens head!?

The sound of gasps and retching could be heard in the control room behind the commander but he dare not take his eyes of the main screen.

Where’s the rest of him wheres the rest of

At that moment there was a flash of light, and first assistant jenson turned around still clutching zuens head and both he and the commander heard the words from the computer.

Defense zone failure, Defense zone failure. Massive incursion detected. Massive incursion detected.

First assistant jenson started to scream you said we would be safe…safe… that they were all gone…..Then a silver beam came from the left and what was once first assistant jenson was now amass of blood and bones.

Cut the transmission the commander screeched, before they lock on to the

whooomp…the sound that they went to sleep praying they would never hear.. filled the command deck and then the beasts started appearing, in groups of three. Always three. In their hands were beam weapons…and then the screaming began to fill the ship along with the laughter of the beasts.

Monday Random

The otha day I opened up a stream in Itunes for a change. usually I’ll just listen to a podcast or just a random playlist, or cd but I said f it, lemme see if there’s somethin interesting on the list of radio streams and guess what there is. How about some Drum n Bass from across the pond. The stream that grabbed me was from UK Bass Radio someone by the name of RobRob was spinnin a wicked set. Niceness was heard . No trainwrecks to be found.

And continuing on with the across the pond stuff. I like the way the use the word row here take a look at this article.

New movies are hitting the screens, the question is which ones do you want to see. What motivates you to see a movie? The review, the actors, the trailers or the buzz.Have you been catching the trailers for Jumper yet? Thought I was gonna say clovenfield the story of a half horse half human who is also Jewish. Oh wait I meant this movie.

Last week I dug into moms recipe box and made a healthy sized pot of Venus De Milo Soup. Named after the local Banquet hall where it was a staple on their menu. According to moms I did well even though I tweaked the recipe so it would accommodate more than one meal. Here are the ingredients:ground beef, onions, celery, tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, frozen mixed vegetables,onion soup mix,orzo pasta, and water.

Caught up on some Torchwood yesterday as BBC America did the whole first season marathon thingee. New season starts this Saturday along with the new season for Doctor Who. Wasn’t able to keep up with previous season when it was on the Sci Fi network, hopefully I’ll be able to keep up with the new season.

Random enough for ya? How about this.. Sarah Conner come with me if you want to live.

Um uh Tuesday

Its always interesting to the see the amount of live or dormant xmas trees out on the street s after the holidays are officially over. There are quite a few in my area. A bit more than last year if i remember correctly. I wonder how long it will take for them to be picked up. According to this article they’ll be taking good care of the trees after they’re picked up. And in the Big Apple they just had something called Mulchfest.
Heres an article from the NY times City Room Blog which touches upon a few things in regards to mulchfest including the debate/discussion the real vs artificial,organic vs non organic. Moms was mentioning why we must have a real tree and the neice and nephew were the ones who said they didn’t want a “fake“ tree.

So I cooked up some cube steak for Sunday Dinner. I preheated the oven to 450. Was running late so had to go with a higher temperature. Usually when I am not pressed Started off with about six ponds or so. First I mixed up some seasoned flour which countained, granulated garlic, freshly cracked black pepper,salt,onion powder,paprika and some cayenne pepper. Then I set it aside. From there I cleaned meat off, quick rinse and then patted the steaks dry. Grabbed the dutch oven roaster thingee and poure in some vegetable oil and heated it up on til it started to smoke just a wee bit. While the oil was heating up I started to dredge the steaks in the seasoned flour mixture.

So the escapism fantasy continues…oh wait I never even broached that subject here. Never mind.

Lately on my Live Journal spot I’ve been starting each post with a piece from a story. They’re all different with each entry and they are just a few lines and and usually cut off just as something major is about to happen. I keep on saying that I’ll eventually take one of em and run with it for main story. Hmmm here’s what what I started off with today

The general outlook was bleak, half of the team was dead the other half was dying. We were out gunned ten times over. The computer scanners fed us incorrect data which was unheard of at the time. If only we had known about the attackers other power, then we would have had a chance. And now to add insult to injury the attackers are…oh hey hi there.

So thats how they usually ends. I’ll have to go back through the postings to find which one I really want to develop. The random ideas usually come to me on my morning walk to grab the newspaper from the convenience store.

Hmm not random enough…

Um Friday?

Have you ever been watching something on TV and a good part comes up and you’re interrupted. Yeah yeah that’s what Tivos & DVRs are for, but unfortunately not everyone has one. Which sucks because there are a bunch things that I’ve missed due to family interruptions, falling a sleep or work schedule. knows maybe someday after once the finances are in order I’ll move up to the DVR level.

Food Stuff
The smell of roasted garlic is always a pleasant aroma. Was at work running the board and loading in commercials and I had a menu idea. Luckily I scribbled it down. I noticed that they have fresh wheat pizza dough at the local supermarket. So maybe a roasted garlic wheat pizza with caramelized onions and maybe some fresh basil. Not sure if i want to add mozzarella cheese. Maybe a drizzle of some red sauce.

Ah yes another blog to read everyday especially if your into Sci Fi. The folks at Gawker have dived into the wonderful world of Science Fiction. Blogging about everything and anything they find relevant. Looks like they got it going on. Take a peek at it io9

Speaking of Sci Fi, new episodes of Stargate Atlantis starts tonight on the Sci-Fi channel. Hopefully I’ll be able to catch more this time around as compared to the amount of episodes that I caught in the fall. I kept falling asleep and wasn’t really feelin Flash Gordon. I think that I read some where that Tealc from Stargate SG-1 will be making an appearance. I guess if I was a superfan I would probably know the name of the episode and all of the details in regards to his appearance but I’m not that hardcore. I do read the blog of the executive producer of the show Joseph Mallozzi . Very cool not all about the show he writes about other things plus you wont find any spoilers there.

That’s it for today.

Happy New Year

Well this is a new spot for me. What a way to start a new year. Hopefully I’ll stick with this more than my otha spot. I’ll toss out some randomness, some fiction talk about food and other things that grab my attention

Speaking of food

Todays food menu at the home front may look something like this

1. Black Eyed Peas
2. Collard Greens?
3. Pigs Feet
4. Baked Chicken Thighs

I think sista will be handling those the pigs feet and black eyed peas. I don’t mess with the swine and i’m still learning the about the black eyed peas. I know first we go through the dried black eyed peas checking for small stones and other types of debris and then I’m not sure after that. Will have to get back to ya on that. The prep of the chicken thighs will be pretty straight forward, remove from package rinse em off then brine em for a while. Rinse off the salt water solution pat dry and season well. I have to remember to pick up some more jerk seasoning paste, so I can make a batch of Jerked Chicken. Yeah its winter and doing em in the oven wont give it the justice of a charcoal grill but its been a while since we had some.

Looks like the fun folks in the recrdn industry are at it again peep this story from boing boing.

Sista and my niece were watchin BET and the new Mary J Blige Video came on. It reminded me about this from the today show.

Keeping it short for now.