Lucky Peach #3

I've been slowly reading the third issue of Lucky Peach. My favorite quote so far is from David McMillan and his thoughts on Sysco:

"Only a fucking idiot would order fish and beef from the same place he orders bleach and mop heads."

So simple, so blunt and so true.

My Father

I wasn't going to write anything about this here. I'm not sure what changed my mind. After I got off the phone with my brother yesterday afternoon (the topic was my father and hospice),  I went to my room, crawled onto the bed and stared at the ceiling for an hour or two.

I often daydream about building a brick oven. A few months ago, I had a discussion with some people at work. That "what would you do if you were suddenly rich" conversation. My response was to quit my job and work on the brick oven full time. I've got plans, drawings, some of the needed tools, local material suppliers lined up, and brick prices. This daydream is probably bordering on unhealthy obsession. While staring at the ceiling through watery eyes I realized that no matter which design I ended up building, what the outside of the oven looked like, where the oven was, or any other detail - every single oven dream includes me serving a pizza to my dad.

It can never happen. And realizing that made me even sadder.

I spent the day with my father. His eyes were closed most of the day. Not really sleeping but not awake either. Not in pain but clearly uncomfortable. As I listened to the hum of the oxygen machine and my father's labored breathing, anger was combined with my sadness.

Fuck you, cancer. He deserves better than this.

Shuffled off to Buffalo

Work has brought me to Buffalo this week. I'm typing this is the lobby of a Holiday Inn listening to the smooth sounds of the Backstreet Boys. I have to write something about the Modernist Bacon when I get home. We've had it twice so far. Spoiler Alert: freakin' awesome bacon. The kitchen is stull under construction. The granite backsplash is supposed to get installed tomorrow. Then we just have to pick tile and install it. And I think I'm going to change out all the outlets too. Piece of cake...

Time Flies

Six years old...

but going on 23.

Summer in February Featuring SPAM

A family tradition to break up winter has been the Summer in February picnic. The idea is to have all of the fun foods you would have at a July picnic in the dead of winter. This has also been called Rib and Pierogi Day. No matter what you call it, the day is a lot of fun and there is always way too much really good food. My responibilities for the meal are the ribs and sausage. This year I added a little bit of Spam. I saw it over at the Cowgirls Country Life a few times and decided to give it a whirl.

I've made sweet Italian sausage and posted about it a bunch of times. On Saturday afternoon, I made about 3 pounds of it. I also made a new to me fresh sausage. Not sure if anyone else has made it before, but it has been on my radar awhile: Srirachia sausage.

Started with some pork butt. It was a little lean so I added some fatback.

Salt and pepper were added at the same ratios used for Italian sausage. Then I added sriracha sauce until it looked wet. Probably around a quarter cup.

Ground it up and cased it. Then I made the rib rub...

Once the ribs were going in the pit on Sunday, I broke out the can of Spam (currently on sale at Price Chopper). I can not remember ever having had Spam before.  It was everywhere in Hawaii. We have hot dogs on treadmills in our quickie marts, they have warmed spam sushi under heat lamps in theirs.

I cut a criss-cross  pattern in the Spam and filled the cracks with brown sugar. As I was doing it, I couldn't help but smile because I was putting organic brown cane sugar on Spam. Slightly opposing sides of the food spectrum there. I drizzled on a little Jim Beam too.

Duke is no dummy. He knows something good is cooking...

 Here's what he was sniffing out

Aunt Carol's pierogi frying station ready to go

As it cooked, the Spam kind of opened up.

Carol's hard at work frying...

My mother in law makes some seriously kick-ass deviled eggs. Her potato salad is top notch too.

Sausage getting plated. Sweet Italian is on the plate. The sriracha sausage is on the right.

Spamity Spam

There were two, delicious trays of these bad boys.

I'd say the pierogi and sausage stole the main course show. The sweet Italian sausage came out great and the sriracha sausage had a nice little heat to it but the spice didn't overwhelm the other flavors of the hot sauce. This is definitely one to make again. I could eat those pierogi all day. The Spam was decent. My father-in-law didn't care for the Spam. He said it was too used to it just fried. Uncle Lou liked it. He said it didn't taste like Spam anymore, it just tasted like a baked ham. Having nothing to compare it against, I thought it was OK. If I make it again, I will make the cuts deeper. I only went halfway through the block of Spam. I'd go as far as I thought I could go without breaking the block next time. I think I'd skip the bourbon too. All in all a beautiful February day.
 

On the road

I'm on the road this week. Yesterday during a pitstop in the town of Bath, NY I bought a lottery ticket and a bottle of water. The cashier asked for my ID. Slightly stunned becasue I am 40 years old, bald and buying water and a lottery ticket I said, "It's just just a water." I was told this gas station cards all tabacco, lottery and alcohol purchases. Then I was told a story about a 90 something year old guy that buys lottery tickets here daily and gets carded each time.

Seriously? After the first month of daily carding a 90+ yeard old guy that you know by name you're not going to let slide a little for him? Hard time believing he's over 18 after having it prove it to you over 30 times? Crazy.

On the opposite side of the customer service scale...We stopped into my favorite bar in the world last night. I had called to pre-order a cheesecake made by a regular customer. But the regular customer has been a little under the weather lately. And unable to reach me to let me know my cheesecake order was cancelled, Jeanette (the best bartender ever), made us chocolate chip cookies herself and brought them into the bar for us. Pretty amazing service for a couple of guys that come to the bar once or twice a year.

Good Cheap Wine

I probably shouldn't be posting this until after I visit the liquor store, but I'll take my chances. Over the weekend there was some wine with dinner at my parents house. It was the Mirassou 2010 Pinot Noir.

I took this picture from the Empire Wine site. This was the best under $10 wine I have had in awhile. Empire's online price is listed at $7.95. You really can't go wrong with it for 8 bucks. If you pick up a bottle, be sure to leave one for me too.