I've been chopped

The second installment of our Home Chopped Competition was conducted last evening. I provided the ingredients in the mystery basket: salmon steak, Old English cheese spread, apple sauce, and Eggo frozen waffles.

My partner outdid herself, and me, with a magnificent meal she described as "sautéed Eggo-crusted salmon steaks; Old English cheesy potatoes; and crisp lettuce and tomato salad with apple sauce vinaigrette and garlic-Eggo croutons."

I graded it thus:

Presentation  excellent.
Creativity  very much.
Taste  outstanding; the salmon was perfectly cooked and seasoned, the cheesy potatoes were exceptionally flavorful, and, if you can believe it, the apple sauce vinaigrette on the salad actually worked, and also the waffle croutons were crunchy and tasty.

Since she was good enough to bestow upon me the title of Chopped Champion for my efforts last week, I must now declare that Judy Brown is the Chopped Champion All-Star!

It's too bad there's no more of those potatoes left.

Busted

When I was quite young, we lived in a tiny apartment in the basement of a house that was occupied by my grandparents and two unmarried aunts.  It was a temporary stop while my parents saved for a down payment on a house of their own, which they eventually did, but we lived there about four years.

One time when I could not have been more than three years old, I got myself grounded.  I don't remember what I did, but I had been bad, and my mother forbade me to go outside and play, something I evidently wanted very much to do.

I asked my mother if I could at least go upstairs and see Grandma, and she said I could.  So I went up the back stairs that led to Grandma's kitchen and without so much as a pause, kept right on walking straight through the house to her front door.  Grandma asked me what I was doing, and I replied airily that I was going outside to play.  She asked me if I was sure that it was all right for me to do that, and I assured her it was.

I proceeded down the front steps and over to the house next door where I joined my neighbor Billy and another friend from down the block, Clifford, who were playing on Billy's porch and front steps.  I don't know what we were doing, but during the course of our activities, I fell down the steps and cracked my head on the concrete sidewalk.  I immediately set to bawling my head off.

There happened to be two women walking by just then who witnessed the incident.  "You poor little thing!" they said, and one of them picked me up in her arms and tried to soothe me with caresses and there-theres.  "Where does she live?" she asked the boys.  They pointed to the next house, and the woman said, "It's all right, honey -- we'll take you home."  Then I really started wailing.  "NO!  NO!" I cried.  "Don't take me home!"

But they did.  I don't remember what my mother did or said.  I suspect she figured the bump on the head was punishment enough.  And I learned my lesson.  I'm sure I've never done anything devious since.

Eat your heart out, Alex Guarnaschelli

The Food Network show "Chopped" is a big favorite at our house.  It involves four chefs cooking meals that must include three or four "mystery" items that usually don't go together and are sometimes downright wacky.  My partner asked me if I would agree to participate in such an event if she set it up, and I said I would if she promised to eat whatever I ended up making -- and we were on.

Sunday was the day, and, unlike the show where they make an appetizer, an entrée, and a dessert, I was to make only the entrée.  I was also given 45 minutes for it rather than 30, because those cooks get to have an oven already hot and pots of boiling water going when they start.  Also, they are professional chefs.

I suspected one of the items would be beef, because my partner loves it so much, and I was right.  The basket contained beef tenderloin steaks, fresh curly kale, a can of mandarin oranges, and a bag of Cheetos.  And just like the show, I could use anything in our pantry and refrigerator.

I did nothing for about five minutes but stand there thinking about it since I'd never cooked or even eaten kale before, but once I got started, I moved pretty fast.  I made a tremendous mess in the kitchen, burned myself not once but twice by grabbing the handle of a skillet that just came out of a 350-degree oven (once with each hand), and had to scramble when the cornstarch seized up in the sauce for the steaks, but I got it done; in fact, I finished with about three minutes to spare.

I made my presentation to my partner the judge, just like they do on TV, saying, "Today I have prepared for you filet mignon with mandarin-orange/white wine sauce, and sautéed kale in a mandarin/cream sauce with toasted Cheeto crumble topping."  She gave her critique:

Presentation  the plate with the steak and the ramekins with the kale were a little sloppy and the Cheeto crumbles got slightly burned under the broiler.
Creativity  very good.
Taste  steak absolutely perfectly medium rare and well seasoned; sauce pretty good; kale thing not so much.

Nevertheless she did bestow upon me the title of Chopped Champion.

Her turn next weekend.  Stay tuned.
 

Outgrew it, I guess

When I am indulging myself in one of my favorite cocktails, I sometimes have a tremendous desire to have more than one.  I rarely do, however, partly because I adhere to the notion that alcohol intake should be limited to one drink a day (for women; men get to have two, which is distinctly unfair).  But, no matter how good it tastes and how tempted I am, I stick with the one-drink rule because I know that two drinks can lead to more, and that can lead to inebriation.  It's not being drunk I mind, it's being hung over.  I believe that not having that second drink, for fear of feeling lousy the next day, is a very grown-up thing to do.

I remember one time when I was a lot less mature, at least as far as this discussion goes, when I was in graduate school.  At the time I was giving guitar lessons at the local music store on Saturday mornings.  Too many beers on Friday night -- well, it makes me think of those Direct TV commercials.

When you drink too much on Friday night, you are hung over on Saturday morning.

When you are hung over on Saturday morning, it's hard to give guitar lessons with your tongue stuck to the roof of your mouth.

When your tongue is stuck to the roof of your mouth, you sneak over between lessons to the tavern next door to buy a Coke.

When you sneak over between lessons to the tavern next door to buy a Coke, you encounter men at the bar who are already drunk at ten o'clock in the morning.

When you encounter men at the bar who are already drunk at ten o'clock in the morning, you are leered at and called "Girlie."

Don't be leered at and called "Girlie."  Get rid of cable.

Or grow up.

Back Atcha

The United States and the United Kingdom have been ineluctably linked since the first English colonists arrived, notwithstanding our having to fight two wars against them to shake ourselves loose.  But I think we all have a sense of what we inherited from our former mother country, not least our language.

I, however, don't often think about what, besides Coca-Cola and McDonald's, we might have shipped back for them to absorb; and yet I've recently been bemused by some musical references in a couple British movies.

One was "The King's Speech" in which George VI's speech therapist suggests he sing what he has to say, as a way to check his stammer, and asks him what his favorite song is.  The King replies, "Swanee River."  Eventually they both begin bantering back and forth to the tune of "Camptown Races." 

All right, a little weirdness on the part of a British monarch is nothing new.  Then today I saw a British film in which a mother and kids beguile the boredom of a long car trip by singing "She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain When She Comes," and in another scene about a village fair, the town brass band comes tramping down the street playing "When the Saints Go Marching In."

The Brits must pay more attention to us than I ever noticed.

If I had a nickel for every ...

A new casino recently opened in Toledo, and last weekend we took a drive down there (about two hours) to check it out.  It's a Hollywood Casino (owned by Penn National Gaming), and it's very nice, and smoke-free, which is even better.

So, in the space of about a week, we not only achieved my goal of gambling at every casino in Michigan, we also added another state to the ones we've gambled in (nine, plus Canada*), and added three names to the list of casinos I've been to (79) since my first casino experience in 1995.

Unlike the visit to Detroit the weekend before, I did not come home from Ohio with more money that I took with me.  In fact, I came back with a great deal less, but that's what I save up that money for, and I consider it the cost of the entertainment.

I have never tried to figure out how much it would be, but I am occasionally tempted to say it would be nice to have all the money I've lost gambling in casinos.  But it really doesn't matter, because if I did have all that money back -- I'd take it to a casino.


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*Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Nevada, New York, Iowa, South Dakota, Ohio, and Ontario.

Name, please...

I love names, and stories about names, and telling those stories, and something reminded me of one of these stories today, and that reminded me of the other one. (Maybe it's not important to know how my mind works, as long as it works at all.)

When I was a student, I worked temp jobs sometimes for extra money, and one summer I had been working at a place doing data entry (BORING) for about five weeks. I got the chance to take a trip to Canada, which I jumped at, even though the assignment wasn't over. I told the man I reported to and also the agency so they could arrange another temp for him.

When he was signing my last time card, the man was nice enough to say that although the agency had assured him my replacement would be competent, he was sure she wouldn't be as good at it as I was. I said "Oh, I'm sure she'll be stellar." He frowned and said, "No, it won't be her. They already told me her name is Nancy."

And then there was this fella I knew named Vince McInerney. He was at the driving range hitting golf balls when some emergency occurred at home. His wife called there and said, "Could you please page Vince McInerney to come to the phone?" Over the loud speaker, he heard, "Will Vince, Mack, and Ernie please come to the pro shop immediately."

That could be the true meaning of "one for all and all for one."