Be Careful about what and where you eat

There is so much to be said about eating in restaurants and cafes and fast food joints.

On TV lastnight I saw a piece about an appetizer at I think an Outback Steakhouse that has an appetizer of french fries topped w/ chili and cheese that has 2900 calories. It is recommended that an average person of 35 or 40 yrs old eats approx 2300 calories in an entire day.

Be careful where you eat and what you eat. It can kill you.

Chili, Julia, and Wyatt

It doesn't get any better than chili and cornbread on the Sunday after Thanksgiving during an unexpected Vikings win, unless you have shared that time w/ your oldest son, his wife and their son, my 2nd and youngest grandchild, Wyatt, who is six months old. There is nothing more special than that.

Leftover chili rivals leftover turkey for leftover eating possibilities. A favorite of mine is a chili cheese omelet. The filling (chili) is ready to use - no chopping and dicing and sauteeing is necessary. Heat the chili in the microwave. Make your omelet in a frying pan. Use almost any cheese. Garnish w/ a generous dollop of sour cream.

Julia Child taught me how to make an omelet on her PBS TV cooking show. She used butter in her pan on med to med high heat and when the butter melts and the " bubbles subside,"( a most Julia-like phrase), you add the egg mixture, which may have a little(tsp) water in it. It still works.

Thanksgiving and Thanksgot

There is a lot to be said about a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, beyond how do turkeys get so big so fast( the same way that chickens do).

It is unarguably the most important food day of the year. Unlike the other holidays in which food figures prominantly, food is the reason for Thanksgiving. Traditional, or a spin on traditional is best. You can get by w/o serving turkey for Christmas - many have built their own tradition - ours is Alaskan King Crab Legs. You can get by w/o serving turkey on Easter. But you cannot get by w/o serving turkey on Thanksgiving.

With stuffing, which you can tweak and individualize, as well as other side dishes, you can make the meal unique to your family. Check out recipes/ideas in seasonal food mags - some are over the top, some are good starting points, some are great. Do your regular menu, but add a side dish.

Watch football, of course, but also consider watching " Home for the Holidays," a riotously funny movie about an extended family gathering together for Thanksgiving. You will laugh till you cry just like you do anyways at your home on this greatest of American holidays.

Golden Plump Hits a Homerun

Did you know that a Golden Plump Chicken barn is 628 feet long? Just over two football fields in length? That a barn of that size holds 52,000 chickens? And that it takes just six weeks to grow a day old chick into a 5 pounder? That it is not uncommon for a chicken's legs to break under the stress of rapid growth and weight gain?

Golden Plump chickens are advertised in supermarket packaging as being all natural. Like Barry Bonds is all natural.

The Bald Eagle and the Coot

Like flies on a cowpie about 20 coots just out front on Platte this morning, 30 ft from me. Bald eagles dive bombing them, managed to isolate one and tire it out so it could no longer dive for safety - an eagle got it in his talons and lifted and then the midair battle began w/ 7 eagles swooping and colliding into the preybearing one in acrobatic attempts to steal it. The coot, now dead, was dropped a dozen times and recaptured by another eagle. Adult eagles( white head) and juveniles were all involved in the aerobatics. Eleven eagles in all. Got some photos but my little digital is more suited to take close ups of food that is not moving. A spectacular show.

Surprised by the Pasty, and the Hunters Feed

For reasons I'll tell you another time, I made a pasty tonight for the first time. Sometimes you have to work with what you've got.

I had no potatoes, so I could not do a traditional pasty, nor rutabagas.

My starch choices were couscous or basmati rice.

Vegetable choices were limited to carrots, celery,onions, and red and green bell pepper.

I did a stir fry with the veggies, ginger and garlic, incorporated the cooked rice, seasoned all with soy sauce and crushed red pepper, and placed it on the pastry round that I made with flour, sugar, salt,water, and veg oil(out of butter), folded into the traditional half moon shape and baked at 400 degrees for 40 minutes( my oven is mis-calibrated).

It turned out surprisingly good, downright edible. Actually better than the traditional ones made by church ladies - I could tell that I was eating when I was eating.

Hunters feed at church on Sat night. Chili and beef stew. Good for church food. Cornbread was exceptional -light brown w/ a nutty flavor . Janelle had done it w/ buttermilk and brown sugar.
Great desserts - brownies w/ walnuts. Pumpkin cake w/ cream cheese frosting. Gingersnap cookies. Ate too much.

The Hypertonic Solution for Fish and Game

Days like these are hard to beat. Seventeen bald eagles in the air over the lake yesterday. Seven today in a tree on the point of the small island - juveniles dive bombing a huge raft of coots just for fun to see them move and make noise - they do this all day.You know how teenagers are.

A half a dozen swans as well, and geese, a group of mallards and redheads too, the first of this fall. And beneath the surface of the water, the walleyes I think have returned via the river channel that connects to Sullivan. Too cold to fish for me to find out. The sunny, warm days of the last two weeks were a real treat to canoe and fish. Biggest largemouth bass that I have seen caught in many yrs and others too, as well as lots of northerns. The walleyes had not returned - dang.

Dr Jerry Poland, in a workplace cookbook( CRMC Surgery & Central Supply), recommends soaking fish filets in a hypertonic solution - 1 tablespoon salt to 1 quart cold water - for about ten minutes before cooking - in order to remove all blood and fishy flavor. He says to do progressive 1 to 2 minute soaks of venison in this solution until the water( solution) is clear, which means that the blood is out.

It works great w/ fish - bass and northern - not a trace of fishy flavor. I will be trying it w/ venison this fall. If there is one thing that I never want in my mouth ever again it is strong or off flavor venison, which is why I much prefer to shoot the very young( though I cannot pass on a trophy buck - thank God for summer sausage via a good meat mkt).

Fast Food God's Way

It's called deer and duck, pheasant, and grouse and so on. They are all pretty fast. They are the good kind of fast food. Cargill doesn't make them, nor the plethora of other large food companies who've had e coli recalls lately. God does( makes them), and we do the harvest. Turns out, it seems, that bigger isn't better. Remember the back to the land movement in the late sixties and early seventies? I guess they were right about something.

If you don't hunt or fish or grow your own garden, it may good to know someone who does, especially if it's a really good friend, or spouse, sibling, or close neighbor. Or else start making some arrangements.

I've always felt that the production, harvest, preparation, and eating of food are some of the most basic of existential endeavors. Now more than ever we know that we can get sick and die from manufactured food with even the best of brand names. That is indeed existential, a life and death situation.

Study up. Pay attention.. Listen, watch, or read the news. Be aware of recalls. Learn more about food. Kill or harvest something and eat it. Go fishing.