The Life And Times Of Matt

I have Minnesota heritage, so when it comes to casseroles, hotdishes, and potatoes, I have natural instincts.  Often this takes the form of adding cheese.  On the flip side, though, I’ve never had much luck with cooking meat.  I can fake it with dishes involving ground beef and chicken, but now I feel the time has come to try grander things.

First, prepare the squash, as it  takes the longest time to bake.  I find that half an acorn squash per person is about all I can take, even though it’s delicious.

Using a sharp knife, and if you have the equipment, a rubber mallet, split an acorn squash in half from stem to tip.  Using a spoon, scoop and scrape out the seeds and stringy sections. For best results, you’ll now want to perforate the squash flesh in some way (although not the skin) – use a fork to poke some holes or a knife to make a few slits.  Then, brush half a teaspoon of melted butter over the flesh of each half, and drop a tablespoon of brown sugar in the hollow of each.  Place the halves cut-side up in a baking dish or tray with a quarter inch of standing water (to prevent burning the skin), and bake at 400 for an hour and a quarter.  Undercooked squash is not terribly tasty so err on the side of overcooking.

Cooking the rice is left as an exercise to the reader.  Or the reader’s rice cooker.

Now to the duck.  Use a glass dish (my hand-me-down Corningware seems to be working fine) for which you have a lid.  Grease the dish, and spread about a quarter cup of orange marmalade on the bottom.  Place your duck (in my case, a large duck breast from the corner butcher) on the marmalade.  I’m new at cooking duck, but I think it best to place the skin-side up, and it’s customary to cook duck with the skin on (in case you were wondering).  In order to help some of the fat run off, pierce the skin in many places but try not to pulverize the meat underneath.  Top the breast with more marmalade, sliced onions, minced garlic, and sliced oranges.  Bake at 475 for fifteeen minutes with the lid on, and then (to facilitate crisping the skin) remove the lid and bake until it reaches your desired level of “done”.  Apparently duck may be served rarer than other poultry, but for my first attempt, I went for at least 165 degrees – maybe another fifteen minutes.

And now, the verdict:

I had a logistical issue with timing the squash and the duck at the same time but while cooking  at different temperatures, so despite my own advice I undercooked the squash because I once I turned it up to 475 for the duck I had a problem estimating when the squash was finished.  As if to karmically compensate for this, the duck turned out to be overcooked.  I believe this was operator error on reading the thermometer…  In any event, it looked good, and the orange and onion was a fantastic combination, but it would be better next time to have two ovens and an assistant who can work a thermometer.

So I picked up a bottle of pomegranate liqueur tonight, since Maria had had a pomegranate beverage at dinner sometime last week and liked it.  So here is a version of a pom-tini and my impressions of it.

1.5 oz pomegranate liqueur

1.5 oz vodka

0.25 oz orange liqueur

In particular, I used Pama (specially bought for the purpose), Svedka (only vodka on hand), and a really old bottle of Bols triple sec.  Shake over ice, serve in a martini glass with a lemon zest garnish.  I confess I didn’t measure the triple sec.  (Speaking as manly-ly as possible) I think the pomegranate flavors are just fine; possibly a superior vodka might carry them better.  Sadly I think my triple sec is the weakest link, but I don’t have cointreau to do a side-by-side.

So ridiculously awesome.  They’re based on potatoes, so feel free to spice and top as you would a baked potato.

Take five or six potatoes, peeled and diced.  Boil until mashable, then mash with a tablespoon or two of butter.  Whip three eggs and stir into the cooled potatoes.  Spoon into greased muffin cups, bake at 350 for 45 minutes, and enjoy.

I added salt and pepper while mashing, and threw some cubed cheddar in before baking.  I topped with bacon, green onions, sour cream, and more cheddar.  I actually think the mashed spuds could have been a bit more delicious with some more spicing, possibly chicken bouillon or broth.  Cream cheese has also been suggested.  In any case, these things are awesome.

For dinner party #5, I whipped up some creme brulee for dessert.  The most difficult part of this process was actually getting up the guts to drop $40 on a blowtorch, and the results, while not perfect, were a great first attempt.  I was pleasantly surprised by how easy everything was and plan on giving it many second tries.

I caught this never-before-seen wine at TJ’s today for $7.99 and thought that I should give it a try.  I’m cooking a spicy Indian-style dinner tonight and was shopping for Rieslings or Gewurtztraminers to stand up to it, but I thought “Muller Thurgau” sounded decently German and might be able to hold its own.

In color it is nearly clear, and the first taste is lightly sweet and is followed quickly by a shot of tangy.  It lingers with pepper, and indeed compares favorably with Riesling.  That’s my limit of pretentious description so if you want more you’ll have to try it yourself.

On my admittedly granular scale, I rate this wine a “buy it again”.

My 1984 Honda Nighthawk 700S came with some added character, including a burnt out light behind the tach.  Here’s my how-to on changing the bulb.

1. Get the right tools for the job
   You will need a 10mm ratchet or wrench and a Phillips head screwdriver, as well as a replacement bulb. My bulb came from Honda with part number 37237-SA5-003. If you’re not using stock parts, it was also labeled as “Stanley 158″ which might help you find it.
2. Be safe
   Always do electrical work with the key removed and the bike left in “lock” or “off”. Do not do electrical work with the ignition in the “park” position. It is still possible to get zapped if you touch the wrong wires, but it is probable that you will get zapped unless you leave the ignition in the “off” or “locked” position.
3. Remove the nuts from the brace at the bottom-front of the front cover
   Using your 10mm ratchet, remove the nuts (x2) attaching the brace to the front cover.
4. Remove the bolts from the frame on the inside left and right edges of the front cover
   Using your screwdriver, remove the bolts (x2) attaching the front cover to the frame assembly. On my bike, I had to nudge aside the hydraulics to even see the bolts, much less unscrew them. The front panel including the headlight will probably fall off at this point. Mine was attached to the frame with a wire but you may not be so lucky. If it doesn’t…
5. Remove the front panel from the frame
   Tug, pry, cajole or otherwise entice the front panel off of the frame. To the best of my knowledge you should be able to freely move the panel about at this point. There should be wiring to the headlight and a safety wire but these should not restrict your freedom of movement.
6. Pull the bulb assembly from the back of the instrument panel
   Using your fingers, pull firmly back on the rubber tab on the back of the bulb. There are two of these located on the extreme edges of the panel, so it should be pretty obvious which one you want to replace. I don’t recommend using a pliers to grip the rubber tab, nor do I recommend pulling on the wires.
7. Replace the bulb
   Extract the bulb from the sock by pulling gently but firmly on the glass. Replace with the new one. Mine was idiot-proofed so as long as you seat it properly in the sock it should work. After you have inserted the new bulb in the sock, I recommend that you put the key in the ignition and turn it to “on” to check that it works.
8. Put it all back together
   If you end up with parts left over you have probably screwed up.

It seems I am 96% percent female.
http://www.mikeonads.com/2008/07/13/using-your-browser-url-history-estimate-gender/

I have always thought that music about other music is among the most absurd things masquerading as art, but today I realized something which is going to require me either to accept an unpleasant truth about myself, or to acquiesce to the self-referential mania of pop music.  As I read White Oleander (NAMMP!  How we all crave validation of our tastes…), getting high from the blur of titles, the dizzying array of literary figures furiously flung at me, I realized that this, too, was a form of genre-promoting inbreeding.  It is not at all obvious whether literature which promotes other literature is any different than music which promotes other music, and since I consider the nepotistic tendencies of certain music distasteful, I must – though with regret – entertain the notion that some of my favorite name-dropping books are morally equivalent.

Why do I, as the reader, take such pleasure in the references, paeans, and sometimes outright lists of writers and works I find in books which are, in most instances, saturated with character, plot, meaning, conflict, delicious sass and wit?  Shouldn’t I judge the work based on the original content, instead of being influenced by the spate of great names it might invoke?  And while I can muster a few defenses of this practice, they all sound weak, even to me.  So let me be the first to say, I am a hypocrite, because I hate it when Eminem talks about Dre but I love it when Fitch talks about Proust.

“If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing at all.” –Thumper

“Mens regnum bona possidet” (”An honest heart is a kingdom in itself”) –Seneca

“Am I my brother’s keeper?” –Cain

To hold back out of kindness, even perhaps mercy, is a time-honored tradition often associated with polite society. It expedites, it smooths over, it lets us not butt heads over every disagreement. But every time we withhold the truth, we also lie a little bit.

Honesty frees us from the fences every lie puts up. When one has to lie in the first place, it’s usually because the true answer would have undesirable consequences, and so to avoid the compounded consequences, one often chooses to lie to cover the lie.  I’m sure everyone has heard something like this from one’s mother.

Recently I have been finding that when the admonition to be honest collides with the admonition to say only nice things, I side with honesty.  I’ve been feeling rather blunt, and perhaps a bit simple, because for whatever reason, the ability to dissimulate carries with it an air of sophistication.  And so I have injured my pride by being straightforward, and others’ feeling by being honest, and my reputation by being less than nice.

I wonder (out loud, apparently) if there were two right ways to handle those situations, and if so, why I seem to have consistently chosen the more innocent?  In many ways this is a trap of my own doing; if I didn’t care about the consequences of my words (or lack thereof), this wouldn’t be a problem; many of these recent confrontations were borne out of a feeling of responsibility; the idea that, through my honesty, I might open up someone’s eyes to something that they really should know but weren’t about to find out for themselves.

And so I am either my brother’s keeper, honest in my loving criticism, shouldering the burden of speaking the cruel truth because I have the sad gift of seeing it; or else I am a meddler, interfering in other’s lives, choosing to belittle them for some unknown reason.  Or more probably, a little of each.  In any case, I wish I had been able to say more nice things lately.