Pie > Cake

Food Porn, Whatnot Comments (4)

With the acquisition of the birthday camera*, I’m incredibly happy that I can now properly reinstate the ‘Food Porn’ tag, the contents of which are sorely lacking for someone who cooks so regularly. I’m also woefully behind Kat’s power curve of excellent food-based ideas. I can think of no better way to kick things off than with an open and honest discussion about the merits and methods for the creation of pie.

For the record, I have no personal issues with cake. I love cake. Among its many redeeming qualities are the fact that it acts as a willing substrate to tiny figures of brides and grooms (or brides and brides or grooms and grooms) or soldiers or clowns or whatever little characters one might feel the need to attach to the top of food. You can draw pictures on a cake. Sometimes, women in various states of undress jump out of them. Cake is also the name of an excellent band. So, cake is perfectly adequate for all of one’s dessert/entertainment needs. If there is one thing about cake that turns me off, it’s the frosting. Frosting sucks. Also, cake is not pie and vice versa.

Pie is the food of the gods. With pie, one may enjoy the health benefits of fruit (let us not speak of ‘the rhubarb conundrum’) with the bonus of a flaky crust. The foundation of any pie, that which decides its qualifications as either ‘adequate’ or ‘incredible’ (pronounced een-cray-dah-bluh), is the quality of the crust along with it’s ‘flake factor’. It is, indeed, the true test of a baker’s mettle. Crust recipes are generally very simple, but the trick is in the way one transfers words into action. The following is a primer on how to make the ideal pie crust, because no one should ever, EVER have to purchase a pie. Not when such things are so criminally simple to construct. Like all other things worth doing, this is worth doing well and practice, as always, makes perfect.

Let’s go ahead and make an apple pie, just because we can. BEHOLD!

Peel and core them suckers real good like and slice them into little hunks. Dump them into a bowl along with ~1 cup of sugar and toss them with reckless abandon. Once thoroughly tossed, chuck them into a colander and set it over a large bowl for at least one hour to let the sugar leach out the moisture. If you don’t do this, you’ll end up with apple juice all over the bottom of your stove and/or your crust will end up soggy and the apples will collapse into something that resembles fruit-like apple-flavored mush product.

El Crusto de los Pie-o
2 c. flour
10 tbsp shortening (I’m a butter-flavor Criso man,myself)
5 tbsp warm water

That’s it. Seriously. There are two secrets to turning this into a flaky crust: #1- Leave your spoons, forks, whisks, etc., in the drawers and use your hands like the cavemen did when they made their pie crusts. You want to combine the shortening with the flour in a bowl until it’s completely incorporated. Add the water and start to form the dough into a large ball. You may need to add a little more water, but do so only one tbsp at a time until the ball stays together. Secret #2: DO NOT OVER-MANIPULATE THE DOUGH. The warmth of your grubby little paws does things to the dough involving physical chemistry, so you want to form that ball of dough ASAP. Over-manipulation = A tough & chewy crust instead of a flaky one.

Separate the dough into a larger ball and it’s slightly smaller twin.

Flour up a couple hunks of wax paper, place the larger dough ball on them, put another piece of wax paper on top of the dough, then roll that sucker out in every direction.

Transfer and form the dough to the contours of a standard-sized pie dish, then dump the apples into the crust and distribute evenly. Throw some cinnamon and nutmeg and, what the hell, maybe a dash of cloves on top of the apples.

Roll out the other ball of dough and place it over the apples. Pinch down the edges of the top and bottom crusts, then you can either take a fork and poke holes throughout the top crust or take a knife and make slits in the top. It doesn’t matter which you do, as long as you do at least one of them.

Put your handiwork into a 425-degree oven for 15 minutes in order to let the crust know who’s boss, then turn the heat down to 350 degrees and let it bake for 45 minutes. Remove and LET IT SIT FOR AT LEAST 30 MINUTES. You want to give the filling time to form a semi-solid mass during the cooling process. If you cut too quickly, instead of using a fork to transfer your slab ‘o pie to a plate, you’ll need a ladle.

VOILA!

And finally, the only proper way for pie to be served:

* I clearly need to spend a great deal more time with this camera to figure out how to make the pictures less mediocre. It’s on my list of Things That I Need To Do At Some Point Down The Road, Sooner Rather Than Later, Ideally.

Sir @ February 8, 2010

State of the Union

Confessions, The Deep, Whatnot Comments (5)

Gather together a group of neuroscientists and ask them to describe the brain and the majority of them will likely say something sterile and scientific like, ‘It’s a ball of goo held together by magic’. Ask the same question to a philosopher or a theologian and they may answer with something along the lines of the mind being a union of the heart and the brain. Throw the word ’soul’ into the mix and things get chippy. Some philosophers scoff at the idea of a soul and some thelogians scoff at philosophy. It all seems to even out somehow in sort of a perpetual stalemate of gradually increasing narrow-mindedness. Personally, I can’t/won’t argue with the goo/magic hypothesis, but I’ve always leaned more toward the philosophical and, to this end, tend to agree with the union concept.

Lydia Davis wrote a poem called Head, Heart that floored me the first time I read it. I’m not usually a poetry groupie, but this constitutes an exception:

Heart weeps.
Head tries to help heart.
Head tells heart how it is, again:
You will lose the ones you love. They will all go. But even the earth will go, someday.
Heart feels better, then.
But the words of head do not remain long in the ears of heart.
Heart is so new to this.
I want them back, says heart.
Head is all heart has.
Help, head. Help heart.

Without proper caution, words like these can set one to thinking deeply about things better left unthought. I can’t blame Lydia Davis for this, easy though it might be. The fact is that for the last six years around my birthday, contemplation of the state of my own head/heart union has been mandatory. It may not seem like the kind of thing that warrants conscious contemplation, but for some people, this union is perpetually in some varying state of peril. Her poem was an innocent bystander to my effort in Xtreme navel gazing and it ended up adding color to a normally very black and white endeavor.

My head is my heart’s over-protective big brother. It accepted this post very early in the game and in short order became an expert at detaching itself and its sibling from the world. There was never any negotiation; heart was in trouble and, yes, head really was all heart had. It’s a common refrain of mine that my head has reached down and plucked me from the abyss many times. Over time, this plucking has been complicated by the fact that my head decides when to pluck. Sometimes it just leaves me there for awhile to brood and sort of meditate on how I got there. This isn’t necessarily always a bad thing; it can be enormously instructive. Nevertheless, at times it can be a bit of dick, frankly.

Dick or not, though, I realize that it has my best interests in, well….mind. The goal has always been to protect me from myself and others and at this it’s excelled. The side effect of my head keeping my heart safe has been a kind of emotional isolation that results in my remaining a perpetually detached observer. I’ve been to a lot of weddings and funerals over the years. Thankfully, the former still outnumbers the latter, but time (and war, sadly) has a way of evening the score. At weddings, I’m happy, but never too happy. At funerals, I’m the stoic one that comforts the more demonstrative folks. I’m afraid that eventually I’ll have been asked to eulogize everyone I know due to the fact that I’m the only one capable of doing so without being interrupted by pesky emotions. But buried deep down, there sits jealousy on the part of both my head and my heart. The latter for the married couple because it remembers what love feels like, and the former for the deceased because the thought of being released from its self-imposed cognitive concentration camp seems genuinely comforting.

And the conundrum is in that comfort: My head knows what it’s doing to my heart, sees the folly in it all, and worries about whether it’s too late in the game to change. Heart understands and empathizes; it appreciates the fact that it owes every beat in recent years to head’s ability to endure things that heart couldn’t at the time. It’s a very complicated relationship marked by one not wanting to disappoint the other. Hope, they agree, is a powerful thing, which also makes it a dangerous thing to see slipping away. People ask me how it feels to be a year older. ‘The same as it always has’, I answer in the most unassuming way possible. I feel like I’m trapped on the inside looking out and the view is the same as it’s always been. Head fears that after years of neglect, heart may do something rash or, worse, nothing at all. Heart knows. It’s nothing new.

Heart is all head has. Help, heart. Help head.

Sir @ January 25, 2010

Guilty Pleasures

Confessions, Whatnot Comments (7)

The Collective has asked yet another question, the answer to which requires more than a mere comment that would take up too much room in a comment section. The question: What are my guilty pleasures? I have only one that I can think of and I’m not even sure that it counts as a guilty pleasure. It’s definitely a pleasure and I feel kind of guilty about it, but I probably shouldn’t. Oh, wait. I have two guilty pleasures if I count the person in the pit in my basement who steadfastly refuses to put the lotion on its skin, which inevitably results in it getting the hose again. It’s a simple request, the lotion thing. I don’t understand what the problem is. Just stubborn, I guess (pffft, women).

The other less oscar-winning guilty pleasure concerns my athletic ability. I’ve always sort of kept it in check because my head is violently opposed to me in a lot of ways. Nevertheless, I’ve been pretty good at a lot of things, and very good at a few things. I don’t really spend a whole lot of time on athletic fields these days due in equal measure to time and opportunity, but here’s the back story to my guilty pleasure:

People frequently underestimate me. This most recently happened during a little golf outing, golf being one of the things at which I used to excel (long story, future post, have the hankies ready). There was one dude, as there so often is, who felt like he needed to prove himself worthy of the state-of-the-art clubs that he carried and the pleated khakis that he sported and the wrap-around shades that he probably wore in order to properly read the undulations in greens that I doubt he knew how to read in the first place. Anyhoodle, we were talking about golf, as you tend to do when preparing to play golf, and I said that I grew up playing and had competed at various amateur levels, sometimes pretty successfully, but that I didn’t really play anymore mostly for economic and time reasons. I think he saw my assertions of past talent as both some weird sort of dare and a golden opportunity to make some money, because he challenged me to a friendly little competition involving a portion of our incomes.

To make a long story medium length, I proceeded to destroy him. Actually, I embarrassed him. It was over long before the 18th hole, and I just continued to pummel him (figuratively, of course). I think I may have even forced him to question his faith at one point. So, my guilty pleasure: Publicly annihilating people who sell my abilities (athletically, academically, Scrabble-y, etc.) short.

Yeah, this would’ve been a long comment.

Sir @ January 22, 2010

Delurk!

Whatnot Comments (16)

Those of you who get updates whenever I post something likely stood up, pointed at your computer, and screamed, ‘LIES!’, when you saw that I’d whipped something out on two consecutive days. Well, you owe your computer an apology, because in honor of the mad genius who came up with this idea, I’d like to extend an invitation to all of my anonymous readers.

O ye fine, literate people out there who read my drivel, but never comment, throw off the comforting invisibility cloak and leave a comment today!

I’m not much of a stat whore where this site is concerned, but when I do take a peek at the traffic, I’m consistently amazed at how many people come here after I throw something up (figuratively, literally, etc.). So, it’s clear to me that I have a veritable legion of lurkers who, if only I could organize and brainwash, might be a powerful army of minions willing and able to go forth do my bidding. ‘Recruit army of minions’ was actually a primary reason for my starting this blog, so mission accomplished!

Today, then, I exhort you of the heretofore nameless reader classes to sally forth to the comment section and make yourself known! It’s fun! It’s easy! No biting!

Sir @ January 14, 2010

I Am A Water-bearing Sea Goat

Whatnot Comments (7)

    

I generally give little weight to horoscopes, but I do know (thanks to a previous girlfriend who was buried forehead-deep in astrology) that I was born on the Capricorn-Aquarian cusp, relegating me to the burden of being some freakish goat/human hybrid. I’m a pretty open-minded dude where the heavens are concerned, so I give everything the opportunity to instruct and enlighten, but astrology always struck me as a little too hokie primarily due to the vague declarations found near the funny pages of newspapers (i.e. ‘Something’s going to happen today that you may or may not expect!’). That said, I still recall being amazed at how accurate a portrait was painted by the description of my particular combination of celestial seasonings. It’s still pretty accurate, except for the twaddle about being a humanitarian. Also, get a load that water-bearer’s ass. No amount of squats in the gym or miles pounded on the pavement could morph my caboose into that. I actually feel a little inadequate now.

For many of my nearly 37 years and due primarily to my genius bordering on insanity, people have enjoyed a day off on my birthday (you’re welcome). I try to be magnanimous about it all, but occasionally folks will come up and say, ‘It’s Martin Luther King, Jr., Day, jackass’, and I’m all, ‘What?’, and they’re all, ‘Douche!’ It’s not my fault that my and George Burns’ birthdays happen to frequently coincide with the holiday, OK? You want to blame me for trying to promote racial tolerance through the consumption of birthday cake, too? Is that what makes you happy? Jerk.

Having gotten the insult out of the way, here’s what I’d like to propose be done to honor my mother’s painful delivery of a screaming, goo-covered water-bearing sea goat into an unsuspecting world lo those many years ago: A music swap. Music is truly the gift that keeps on giving and since I’m much better at giving than receiving, I’m going to send music to whoever’s stupid enough willing to send me their mailing address. And just to prove that I have no fear of stalkers/death, I’m going to respond to each person with MY mailing address, so that the aforementioned person might send me a CD full of whatever music they deem fit for a stranger’s consumption.

So, my gift to myself is to give everyone else gifts and then for them, in turn, to give me a gift, which I think somehow qualifies me for the Indian Giver Hall of Fame. Doesn’t matter, though. The bottom line is that everyone gets music that they may not have heard before, thereby broadening their horizons and junk. A friend likes to do this kind of thing spontaneously every year, where he compiles his favorite musical discoveries from that year into A-side and B-side CDs and hands them out to everyone. He’s done this for four years now and the dude hits the mark every year. I don’t where the hell he finds some of these bands, but I’m always a little upset that I managed to completely not hear of most of them.

Your mission, therefore, should you choose to accept it, is to slap together a CD of music that you found this year that made you go, ‘Huh!’, or, ‘Whoa!’, or, ‘Gah!’, or some other equally poetic exclamation of joy. If you didn’t hear all that much new or groovy this year, feel free to augment with whatever music consistently makes your ears happy. Send it to me, I’ll send you a CD of my own creation, and the world will turn a little smoother. Liner notes not necessary, but always appreciated.

Sir @ January 13, 2010

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL(S)!

Whatnot Comments (10)

1. Run at least one marathon I’ve long been sick of running simply for the sake of running. ‘But what about the health benefits?’, you ask. Whatever, yo. I need something more than health to motivate me in my quest for bad knees. I said ‘at least’ up there because here was my original thought: It takes about four months to train for a marathon and if there are twelve months in a year, hell, I could do two marathons easy.’ You now have an illustration of the masochistic mindset that I so frequently inflict upon myself. I think one’s enough, considering the number of things that could go wrong during the course of training for something as ridiculous as a marathon. The way I finally figured it, I can subdue the screwed up part of my psyche by running a few half-marathons as part of the training.
   Pain Factor: Highly likely.
   Doability: Absolute.
   Potential for Death: Relatively minor. Possibly by my own hand at around mile 21, but doubtful.
   
2. Be more consistent about going to the gym It used to be that waking up and heading to the gym every morning was a piece of cake, but this ended when I became a student for some reason. I still go more than the average bear (I assume), but this wishy-washy crap has to stop. I’m not getting any younger and the weeks off that used to be no problem now result in my damn near having to start over from scratch. Also, marathons require a team effort on the part of the body, so no more of this junk where the arms call the legs ‘prima donnas’ and the chest and the abs gang up on the back. I need to get into a groove and stay there.
   Pain Factor: Pretty much a given these days, although it’s much less of an issue when I find and remain in the aforementioned groove.
   Doability: Definite.
   Potential for Death: Unlikely. I go at an hour that finds the place infested with the elderly, so I steer clear of doing anything requiring either a spotter or the jaws of life.
   
3. Start climbing rocks again Yet another reason to 1. Run and 2. Pump moderate iron. Have you ever tried to pull excess fat up a cliff? It sucks. So, yeah. Svelte is the goal. Rock climbing is the ultimate version of placing yourself in a situation where you either keep going or you regret it mightily. I appreciate that kind of demand for a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer. I’m also jonesing for something that at least pretends to be potentially life threatening.
   Pain Factor: You have to use muscles that you didn’t know you had, so pain is inevitable.
   Doability: I already bought the gear, so …
   Potential for Death: Let’s say ‘Recklessly high’ just to get the blood pumping.
   
4. Read more I barely read 20 books last year. So pathetic. I could probably use school and research as excuses, but Ashley’s in graduate school, too, and she still managed to read 274, 667 books last year, so I just suck. I love reading too much for this to stand.
   Pain Factor: Aside from paper cuts? Nil.
   Doability: Oh, please.
   Potential for Death: Aside from blood loss due to paper cuts? Nil.
   
5. Get a damn camera already, geez, WTF? ‘What the hell is my problem?’, I ask on my mother’s behalf? Of all the places I’ve been and the things I’ve done and seen, my perpetual lack of a camera has infuriated relatives, friends, clergymen, and camera companies. I have a photogenic house, cook photogenic food, keep photogenic dogs, and live in a ridiculously photogenic state, so I think the time has come. How sad is it that I have to make this a goal?
   Pain Factor: Huh?
   Doability: Birthday this month + Mom demanding pictures = Instant solution at no cost to me.
   Potential for Death: Statistically insignificant.
   
6. Wrestle the steering wheel away from my head and give my heart a chance at the helm for awhile My head has saved me from my past and given me a future, often at the expense of my heart. I think it’s time to give one a break and the other a fighting chance.
   Pain Factor: Potentially excruciating.
   Doability: Where there’s a will, etc.
   Potential for Death: I lack the drama gene necessary for such a scenario.
   
7. Go to the doctor I don’t do this. It’s been years since my last visit. I never get sick. I refuse to take drugs outside of the occasional Advil. Going to a doctor is like poking a wolverine with a stick until finally the wolverine pulls out a gun and shoots you in the hip. Actually, it’s nothing like that, but I don’t enjoy the prospect of going to the doctor feeling fine and leaving with a diagnosis of debilitating hopelessness. It’s a ridiculous excuse, I know. I’m surrounded by M.D.s who nod their head at my declarations of self-righteous refusal, then tell me to suck it up and stop being a moron. *sigh*
   
   *mutters* Doctors are stupid.
   
   Pain Factor: Are you kidding?
   Doability: *sigh*
   Potential for Death: Hell, it’s practically a given.
   
8. Pass the PhD qualifying exam This will advance me from ‘graduate student with fair-to-middlin’ potential’ to ‘PhD candidate’ and will enable me to continue doing what I’m doing now for the next ~3 years.
   Pain Factor: Let us not speak of this.
   Doability: Highly.
   Potential for Death: Technically the faculty aren’t allowed to kill you.
   
9. Try to get back to England to watch a few World Cup games with the far-flung friends Watching the World Cup anywhere outside of the U.S. is a great experience. Heading back to England during the summer and watching a few games in a pub with a bunch of people I rarely get to see anymore is like killing a bunch of birds with a single stone (avian genocide!)
   Pain Factor: Minimal as long as I stay away from the hard cider.
   Doability: Monetarily suspect, but still a definite possibility.
   Potential for Death: Meh. It’d be worth it.
   

Sir @ January 6, 2010