Kitchen Confidential and a la Cart

Ha! Gotcha Mr. Foodie know it all!  Anybody with even a rudimentary knowledge of the food service circus knows that it is “à la cartE” Well, read on, oh high and mighty expert!  In this instance it IS spelled correctly!

One of the things that I can more or less manage is cook.  However, since our counter tops are fairly high, it is sometimes (always) hard for me to dice, slice, and prep ingredients from my transfer chair.  Well, as usual MFO to the rescue.   She consulted Carl Taylor at Beautiful Kitchens and Baths, and we communally came up with at design for a carT (no “E”!)  HA!  It is not only functional, but also a very nice piece of furniture.

The container in the upper right is a removable bowl into which the detritus of “stuff” that is generated can be scraped.  The shelves are “roll out” easily opened with one hand. 

The top is top of the line Boos Block (which is tops!), which is kept smooth and nice looking with application of their “Mystery Oil”

After a bit of use (and experience) we are in the process of implementing “Mod One”, which will bring electric to the cart for food processing, blending, using the knife sharpener, etc.  I was envisioning a clunky power strip, but no, the technology is ahead.  There’s this nifty little “pop up” power thingy designed especially for counter tops

And looky that!  USB ports.  Amazing.

Also getting drawer pulls to mount on the ends.  The down side is that it is quite heavy to horse around, so something to hang on to would help, plus they will double as a towel rack.

Sooo, no excuse not to use it.  Our first foray was to try to cook a full size pizza.  So got some dough mix from the web, and assembled stuff

We got some pork sausage from WAG (Willie A Guy) farm in Leonardtown as the only “local” ingredient.  MFO rolled out the dough and sauced it

And sprinkled the (cooked) sausage over it.

All was going well at this point, the (world’s most expensive) Pizza stone was in the oven and things looked good.   The pizza was on the (world’s cheapest) peel, and then things started to go down hill.  In rolling out the dough, it kind of stuck to the (well corn mealed) cart top so a couple of holes appeared.  Easily fixed.  But, when it came time to put the pie on the stone in the oven, it more or less refused to budge from the peel.  So with some tools, braving the 500 degree oven, we managed to coax it onto the stone.   Didn’t do anything for the shape, kind of went amoeba-like.  After ten or so minutes, it looked very nice and bubbly melty, crust appeared quite brown.   Time to extract it from the oven.  

You know those shots you see of some chef sliding a peel effortlessly under a perfectly cooked pizza?  Oh no, not here.  Again with the heat searing the eyebrows, we found the pie pretty much welded to the stone despite what I thought was correct preparation measures.  It laughed at the peel so I basically had to use a spatula like a chisel to pry it from the stone back onto the peel.  By this time, it resembled an amorphous blob covered in sausage; bearing little resemblance to what one would consider a classic pizza shape..  The GOOD NEWS if any, was that it tasted very good.

Take Two, A bit better..

Having some sausage (which was very good, by the way) left over from the Pizza wars, undaunted I thought: Hey!  I could make my own sausage McMuffin for breakfast!   So trotted out the ingredients

Formed the sausage into patties and began to cook them in the (alleged) non-stick pan

I have finally trained myself to not poke and peek at something in a fry pan, so left them alone to caramelize..well, it isn’t my week for “non-stick”; finally, with the aid of a spatula, I flipped them to find they were a tad overdone.

I put them in another (covered) pan with some Boar's Head cheese like material (probably faithful to Mickey Dee’s) and to melt, which it did pretty well

Meanwhile, I toasted the Muffin, and fried the egg in the same pan used for the sausage

And, although kind of out of scale I assembled my “Muffin”.

It was kind of messy and quite thick, but I managed, and it wasn’t bad.  I think a thinner sausage patty next time

So, that’s what a self-quarantined blogger does.  Riveting reading, eh?  But the cart is very nice.

Does this seem familiar??

And there’s not much reason these days to

DFD

One remembers flavor more than dates and times in the memory portion of the brain

Jeff Smith  

Alarms Oysters, Chapels, and Travel

Well, kind of a "this and that" today.  No great dining experiences, although we can start out with a surprising dining experience.  MFO’s volunteer efforts are in large part devoted to the SMC Historical Society, where she meticulously preserves, photos, letters, and ledgers brought in by our county residents.   The Society, like everybody else is strapped for money (thank you, county!) and so they hold a dinner in spring and fall.  Last Friday (4/6) was the spring edition.  They try and select a “theme” that was part of our history for each event, such as Moonshine, Tobacco, and so forth.  This one was devoted to Oysters. 

As usual it was held at the Olde Breton Inn on Society Hill in Leonardtown.  In honor of the bivalves, they set up a shucking table

Where the little morsels were being (carefully) released from their shell by the gentleman

Having been around “shuckers” on this side of the Atlantic, and “openers” on the other side, I would say he poses no threat to competitions in either place.  I was not sure of the origin of the little guys, but many had a very elongated character which I found somewhat off-putting.

Also, they were a bit difficult to consume. I really don’t like to cut one in half, so ended up with folding it over like some do pizza.  A bit unnerving, although the flavor wasn’t bad, not terrific, I’ve had better. .  A local told me they were called “spots”. 

As most locals know, Eddy Bailey has held sway at Olde Breton Inn for years and years.  And, for years and years, the dinner is served as a buffet, and for years and years, it has been unswerving in the choices..  mashed potatoes (with gravy like material), some sort of cheesy potatoes, green beans with pimento and bacon bits, green salad, chicken cordon bleu (courtesy of some food service), fried oysters, and finally a carved steam ship round of beef, with choice of au jus or horseradish.  Most members of the Historical Society have been for years (and years), and that is what they expect and what they like.  I was shocked/surprised this year to find the cordon bleu hing was replaced by crab stuffed chicken!  Over my brief years of attendance, I have pretty much settled on ignoring most of the other stuff, concentrating on the oysters,  which are always good, and trying my luck with the beef.  Out of curiosity i did try the variation of the chicken

which can be seen on the right, with the beef tucked in behind it.  As I said, the oysters are always good and plentiful.  The chicken was a welcome change at least.

The program that evening consisted of a talk by Dr. Henry Miller (of Historic St. Mary’s City) about the history of human consumption of Oysters, going back thousands of years.  Then Captain Jack (Russell) a waterman who operated a Skipjack for years, and then matriculated to politics.  Told us about the history of the skipjacks and the “oyster wars” between Maryland and Virginia, and called on several of the retired oyster and watermen who were in attendance.  I love to hear them talk, some with such local accents that you have to struggle to understand them.   Then of course there were stories from them, a delightful evening. 

Docent report

The next day, I was scheduled for “Chapvol” duty, meaning I went down to Historic and manned the Reconstructed Brick Chapel of 1667 for a few hours, answering questions for patrons, and talking about the history of the Chapel, Lord Baltimore’s Colony, the discovery and reconstruction of the current Chapel, and so on..  As I have said before, interest ranges from casual to enthusiastic and part of the fun is to know when they’ve had enough.   Eye contact breaks, nodding and shuffling toward the door, signs like that give you clues as to when you say "Thank you for visiting the City today".

Anyway we have added a new exhibit to the interior of the Chapel, the famous “Lead Coffins”.    After being discovered in the early nineties, and eventually unearthed and opened, they spent time in the Smithsonian as part of the “Written in Bone” exhibit, and now are finally on display in their original location in the right transept fo the chapel.

6150

It is really a nice presentation with the recorded video talking about the discovery and research associated with the journey of the coffins.  Their presence kind of alters our/my usual patter.  Adapt.

Without repeating my whole Chapel Chatter (which forms our reports of visitation, numbers, questions, etc.) I will pass on one interesting thing.  A man somewhat younger than I (which applies to most people) and his daughter came in, and said they had never been in the chapel before and wanted to see the coffins.  So, I started to go into the Coffin speech and he said, “Oh yeah, I bet Henry was very excited”.    On their way out I said “how did you know Henry?”.   "Oh, I was in graduate school with him!"  Of course a short Michigan State discussion followed.   It’s always fun and illuminating to see who walks in the chapel doors..  If you haven’t seen the coffins, come on down!

Lastly, I found a couple of cartoons in the New Yorker which MFO receives weekly that kind of tickled my funny bone, especially this one

Been there, done that, and still live in constant fear..

And who hasn’t hung around wine stores enough to hear one of these

Oh, MFO and I are going to be taking a little (key word) trip to OK to attend the graduation of a great nephew.  Most of the “Otto” side of the clan will be gathering, and MFO wants to seem them.  So leaving Thursday, and returning Tuesday.   Please (insert name of favorite deity) no violent weather or quakes.  Thank you..

And, although it is in the Midwest (or does it qualify as “West”?)  we will be packing duds so we can

DFD of steak or ‘que

Cast in Concrete....

Certainly not food related, but another of the days of our lives...

 

It was a busy time toward the end of the week and over the weekend for the flutter family.  Seems like everything happens at once.   As you may remember, way last spring, we made the decision to replace the pool deck surrounding the gray lagoon. After a summer of delays for various reasons that seemed plausible at the time, intervening jobs, vacations, a brush with Sandy, it turned out that last Thursday (15^th) was the day for the pouring of the new deck.  No matter that the next day was the Hospital Gala, in which I am involved and should have been spent setting up, but when the concrete guys are ready, you jump.

So the day dawned and we hoped to have a change in the condition we had been looking at for well over a month - plastic sheeting, reinforcing bars, blowing leaves and a pool full of water.. not real attractive.

 

And on top of it all, among the many other obsessions I have, the condition of my lawn rates high.  I’ve spent a lot of resources and time to keep it nice looking, and the thought of concrete trucks lumbering through it was horrifying to me.  Have to have it both ways, you know.  Well, the concrete folks said they “would take care of that”.  So, first thing Thursday morning, there appeared in our driveway a vehicle that could have come from outer space

 

Soon to be followed by a more familiar “cement truck”

 

After some preparations the alien vehicle started to unfold like a monstrous creature coming out of a chrysalis, and slowly began to advance over the digs...

 

 

 

 

Until eventually it crested the house, and reached the back yard and extended its proboscis down to the pool

 

All of this was done with a remote control device deftly handled by the alien vehicle's driver, whose first statement was:  "I hate to go over houses!".   Gee, thanks for that!  Once the nose and hose was in place in back, the other beast in the driveway opened it’s maw

 

And began feeding the alien machine

 

Pumps began to churn and soon enough concrete was exuded onto the pool deck!  How amazing is that?  The spewing concrete was then guided to the area where it was needed, spread out

 

And eventually hand finished (several times, actually) as it began to look like a pool deck.

Not content with just colored concrete, we wanted a slate like surface texture, and that called for a technique called “stamping”, which was achieved by taking little pads with protruding "bumps", laying them down and then doing a dance on them to impart the texture to the finished concrete.   Maybe it should more accurately be called “stomping”!

 

I was told that it took years of practice to perfect the exact pressure, location, and movement to make it work.  I didn't argue.  Finally we had the makings of our new deck!

It is still curing so the final condition won’t be obvious for a week or so…

Speaking of a week or so, Thanksgiving is right around the corner, and I realize I have not had a chance for my annual (boring) Thanksgiving Day foodie report.  By now I know your menu is set, but I’ll try to jump through my several Thanksgiving day issues of the food mags and maybe come up with some tips.. one of which will most assuredly be

DFD