I still haven't figured out what netscape did with the bookmarks file. However, the internet is a really big place, and there's always something new to find:

Best Web Site Name of the Week
for the week ending 8 October 2006

MeatHenge

MeatHenge. It just sounds good to say it. Go ahead, we'll wait: mmmm... "MeatHenge"

Truly, this is one of the great web site names.

It conjures up the image of massive slabs of ribs that haven't been seen since the opening theme to the Flintstones. Biggles is obviously a firm believer that, in fact, "big hunks of meat" are the ellusive sixth food group. (#5 is beer, natch) (and yes, that does mean that meat is two of the six major food groups. ya got a problem with that?)

Tailgaters take note: here is the one guy out there who has you beat. Hands down, no argument, with one roast tied behind his back. It would be best not to get bitter and/or jealous; just sit back and learn from the master.


(about the award -- past winners)

as long as we're on the subject of meat...

Here's a recipe written and posted to spec for a friend who wanted chili for this Saturday's tailgate. See, this internet thing is interactive. Granted, Todd has my email address so it was fairly easy for him to ask me, but even you could make a request, in the comments on a post or on the tagboard.


Assembly Line Chili
...so called because it's a scaleable solution to the chili problem.

Shop:
(for one iteration)
1 14 oz. can each of:
- black beans
- garbanzo beans (chick peas)
- kidney beans
- diced tomatoes with green chilis
- refried beans ("spicy fat-free" is good) (optional)
1 8 oz. can tomato sauce
1 bell pepper (optional)
1 really big vidalia (or other sweet) onion
1 package (~1 lb.) ground turkey, or coarse ground chuck
1 package Carroll Shelby's Original Texas Brand Chili Kit (or similar)
a little oil or butter

Hardware:
Collander
Gladware 13 cup container (3/4 of a gallon; it's the big deep square one)
Skillet

Recommended beer: yes.

Lab Procedures:

How many times have I cooked chili? I've done several barrels worth, I'm sure. (a 'barrel' as a unit of measure is 31 gallons). Is this my best chili recipe? Maybe not, but then again chili is very subjective, and getting the right blend of spice, burn, bulk, lower costs, and meaty goodness is a balancing act that will never come out the same way twice.

roughly two years ago I posted what is now an obsolete version of this one.

The best thing you can say about this recipe is that it's fast: no need to simmer for hours on end, just make and eat in an hour or less.

You might notice some similarities between this recipe and the burrito filling. There has been a certain amount of cross-pollination between the two, to the benefit of both IMO.

Start: Drain and rinse beans, 3 cans. My choices are above, pick whatever varieties you like. Dump beans in the gladware container. To this add the diced tomatoes without draining, and the small can of tomato sauce. Refried beans are added as a thickener; if you use them don't bother with the masa (fine ground corn) flour that is provided in the chili kit.

Next: Pre-heat a skillet over medium heat. Dice the onions, and bell pepper if you like peppers. Saute the veg in a bit of oil or butter. When these go soft and the onions are translucent, dump these on top of everything else in the gladware container.

Meat!: Don't bother to clean that skillet; add your meat to the pan and brown over medium high to high heat. Then drain the fat, and add the spices from the chili kit. You can skip the salt, and if you're using refried beans as a thickener, you can also skip the masa flour. Mix the spices in with the meat and a quarter cup of water, and keep it over flame just long enough to heat through.

Add the meat to the rest in our container-slash-mixing-bowl. Getting this mixed is quite a workout-- I'll add a bit of water and/or light beer to the chili just to loosen it up to a point where I can stir it. We mix this in the gladware so we can then just lid it and dump it in the fridge-- fewer dishes to clean is always a good thing.

This is "assembly line" chili because the three steps can be done concurrently (one person each on beans&maters, cooking the veggies, and cooking the meat) and because as soon as you're done with one batch, you can immediately start into another (without cleaning the skillet, even)

Notes:
This is actually a chili concentrate recipe-- when serving, I'll add water to a portion just like I might to a can of condensed soup. Often I serve up just a bowl at a time, though you could take this from the fridge or freezer, add to a large soup pot with water, and simmer over low heat until everything is warmed through.

Some of my friends (Bob) might argue that there is nothing wrong with the "concentrate" as is and would actively argue against adding water, and in fact might also consider the 13 cup container to be--at most--just a serving and a half. maybe 2 servings if there is a loaf of sourdough bread to go with it.

Serving suggestions include the aforementioned sourdough (while re-heating a pot of chili I'll eat a whole loaf a bit at a time, dipping it into the chili as it cooks. Oddly, by the time dinner is 'ready', I'm full.) or crackers, hot dogs, etc etc hell I've already posted this

If you wanted to cook beans from scratch, 1 cup dried beans will give us about 2 cups cooked beans, which would be roughly a can's worth.

One could also omit the beans entirely and use twice the amount of meat. I think I know what I'm cooking for dinner tomorrow...

so posting the recipe yesterday inspired me in some small part, and tonight I did another batch of chili.

$15 for 5 quarts. (this is why I have a category of recipes called 'bachelor chow': cheap eats we don't mind eating every day for two weeks running. That could also be called the foundation for the non-fiction project, in fact)

There are significant differences between what I cooked tonight and the recipe posted yesterday. I'm not posting the damn recipe again. Short of renaming this the Chili Blog and posting every last variation I happen to come up with... it's a lot of work as is, dammit.

(Speaking of... I'm going to work up my own spice combo, as opposed to relying on pre-mixed and expensive spice kits. I've warned the roommate, that there may be a lot of chili of varying quality to dispose of in the near future. His response was somewhere between a non-chalant exclamation of "cool, dude." and the serene bliss of a boddhisvata in contemplating helping others escape earthly bonds and achieve nirvana. That is to say, I think he's looking forward to it.)

My secret ingedients may yet remain secret. I might post them to the intarweb. There is a long development phase, and also, I need to work up a batch size somewhat smaller than the multiple-gallon version that I typically make, because-- particularly for experimentation-- it'd be a shame to waste that much food.

I'm still working my way up to daily updates. I'm now in a mode where I'm posting less than daily but more than once-weekly. And keeping up with the BWSNotW Awards (hopefully) means there will at least be something new to read about each Monday.

I'm really tempted to post my what's-wrong-with-you-people customer-service-and-retail rant when I get home from work today. Not that I've written it yet, but every day at work I think of one or two more points and mentally add them to my list. Honestly, what's wrong with you people? Anyone who has ever worked retail knows there are some serious problems with the general public as a whole, and shoppers in particular.

In response to the many many hits I get from search engines, I'll also have to write and post a Draft Beer FAQ. If folks are surfing in here for answers to these questions, then obviously there is absolutely nothing else on the internet that adresses these points.

Here's a sample of what folks are googling (and subsequently coming to this site) for:
Q: "Where can I buy a keg tub?"
A: Dude. It's a tub. They don't market them as 'keg' tubs, per se, but I've seen them at Walmart, Target, Home Depot -- any place that also sells plastic trash cans likely also has a 20 gal. 'storage' or 'wash' tub on the same aisle.

Again, I have some honorable mentions, like Pop Will Eat My Blog-- or the antiparticle to MeatHenge (last week's winner), the Tofu Hut.

Our intrepid staff (read: me, a search engine, and a six pack) try to dig just a little bit deeper than that, hopfully for a web site name that invokes the spirit of pirates, robots, ninjas... and that elusive something extra...

Best Web Site Name of the Week
for the week ending 15 October 2006

Evil Monkey Notes

It was a toss-up this week between Evil Monkey Notes and Strange Monkey Doll. The Evil Monkey edges out for the win because first: it's evil, duh; and secondly, the lovely evil monkey image pirated from Family Guy that features prominently in their masthead.

Congrats Evil Monkey! now, get out of my closet.


(about the award -- past winners)

On top of the impending retail rush (and our preparations in store for the same), family commitments, college football, and-- somewhere in the middle-- my own birthday, November is the month for NaNoWriMo. Despite numerous 'failures', I'm going to be trying this once again... with the added restriction that I'd like to hit 50k by Thanksgiving this year, because I know from past experience that I likely won't be able to find time for writing at the end of the month.

I encourage everyone to participate. (if only so that I'll look less nuts, because other people are also trying it)

1st aside: Who's the latest action super-hero to star in his very own cartoon?

da Pope. yep.

and while we're on matters pontifical:

Best Web Site Name of the Week
for the week ending 22 October 2006

the Quantum Pontiff

2nd aside: There's a phrase Dave (or should I say Prof. Bacon? well, we'll start off with 'Dave') uses that I'm going to file away for future reference: "a gigantic ball of flaming flamable flame wars"

I used to think of myself as an intelligent man. I scored high on the SATs. I took 3 years of math at the collegiate level. (the math course that was the most fun was Discrete Math, where among other things we re-apportioned the House of Representatives a couple dozen times based on census data from different decades and using varying methodologies) (Yes, I just said "math" was "fun". If this makes your brain hurt, just skip it and move on.)

moving on...
...I used to think of myself as an intelligent man, but then as a physics major I tried to wrap my brain around quantum mechanics. I took Intro to Quantum 4 times. I finally passed that forth go-around, but I also changed my major.

Quantum Pontiff is just a cool name. ...well, cool enough to merit a BWSNotW nod, at any rate. However, reading some of the articles on Dave's blog may just make your head explode. Here's one that induces a chuckle, though, and maybe just a bit of envy.


(about the award -- past winners)

I was browsing through my hit logs, seeing what people were typing into google and other search engines, mostly for the upcoming draft beer FAQ (these count as questions in my book, though they aren't asked directly) and I had to laugh a little at a few of the searches-- like the "japanese schoolgirl" fan in Malaysia (sorry, dude. hope that picture search works out for you, [*snort* *chuckle*]). Other than that odd abberation, it seems folks surf in here after looking for one of three things:

- draft beer crap
- one of the bar reviews, or
- a food question

Anyway, I thought I'd take a moment to honestly answer a few of these (non beer) questions culled from the searches:

To the Australian looking for a Jager Sauce recipe: (Australians, plural? It's been searched several times. And why Australians? Anyone able to give me some input?)
I gave this a glancing blow in one of my "chicken and" recipes, but at the time I was doing a cream based psuedo-stroganof instead of a jager. I'll go over the other for you now, in detail.

Jager Sauce
I first encounted Jager (German "Hunter") sauce when it was generously glomped over schnitzel. First here in the states, and also memorably in Deutschland itself. (my host family compared me to a magician, because I made it disappear, and also to a 'mining machine'-- I believe in the states we'd refer to it as a front-end loader-- because of the way I was shovelling it down. needless to say, that Jagerschnitzel was damn tasty.) It's basically a brown gravy with mushrooms. Here's how I'd try to duplicate that sauce today:

Shop:
(for 2 servings)
teaspoon beef bouillon (or 1 cube)
8 oz. mushrooms (buying pre-sliced is awfully handy)
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons flour or corn starch
water
+ pan drippings, but you don't really buy these

Hardware:
The pan you just cooked schnitzel in, for the aforementioned pan drippings. (or whatever: also works well with steak, salisbury or otherwise-- or any cutlet for that matter, whether it originally mooed, oinked, gobbled, bleated, barked, or whatever) (I'm kidding about the dog, people. don't email me)

Lab Procedure:

add the sliced mushrooms and cook down until they are, well, cooked.

Deglaze the pan with a little water, ~a cups worth. Add your bouillon, and simmer over low heat until disolved.

Now, you could make a roux on the side in another pan, but I'm going to assume you're lazy: add your butter, stir until combined, and then sprinkle in the flour and stir the gravy until you get rid of lumps. Takes a while, I know. My trick is to make a slurry with a little water and the flour, shaking well with a martini shaker before adding to the pan. But then, I'm the sort of guy who has not one but three martini shakers knocking around my kitchen. (and I don't even drink martinis. odd, that.)

Simmer to reduce, or add water to thin your gravy until you've got your desired consistency.

##

More webby-searchy goodness:

Q: "chili gravy for beef burrito recipe"
A: I think you may be looking for a mole (pronounced mo-le) sauce recipe. I can't say I've ever done Mole, so I'm sending you to wikipedia and the food network

Q: "how many servings in a gallon of chili"
A: I hate to do this to you, but... that's 4 quarts, or 8 pints, or 16 cups to the gallon...
...oh, wait. apparently, that was supposed to be for chili dogs, as evidenced by a later search. So, 16 tablespoons to a cup...

Yes, I'm being sarcastic. I'd figure on 3-4 tablespoon of chili for each dog, [*crunching*] so roughly 50 chilidogs out of a gallon, assuming of course that the chef helped himself to a cup or two while cooking. It happens.

Maybe I should rebound search that to find the guy serving chili dogs in the UK somewhere. Not that I'm going to be in the neighborhood, but it's always good to know.

There was perhaps an unstated understanding that I would only pick personal blogs for the BWSNotWA, but hey if it's a good name, I'll link it.

That, and I'm feeling pretty damn lazy today.
"found one, Boss."
Fine. Run it.


Best Web Site Name of the Week
for the week ending 29 October 2006

Mothership BBQ

"I am Dr. Funkenswine, Proprietor of Mothership BBQ in Nashville, Tennessee. I lovingly hand-rub every rack and butt that lands on my smoker, baby!"

For those of you who just can't get enough-- or who wanted to see local TV commercials for the Mothership-- there is also a Mothership BBQ Blog.


(about the award -- past winners)

A notice for those of you surfing in from a search engine, who are seeing this post out of context: I've set up a page where all future versions of the Draft Beer FAQ will be located. [- click here -]

(The original journal entry is after the break)

So I bumped the Draft Beer FAQ over to its own content page, which is where it'll live moving forward.

I may cross-post updates to the FAQ on the main blog, but likely not for minor stuff. I guess it'll depend on how many words (& how much time) it takes me to answer a question--

And a note: my next post will likely be for the NaNoWriMo bit on Tues. night/Wed. morning ~2am or thereabouts.

I will keep up with the BWSNotWAs, and other interstitials, but the bulk of November's output will be hot, fresh, steaming novel.


Best Web Site Name of the Week
for the week ending 5 November 2006

Watching London Burn

With a pint or five, a few good friends, and a fire extinguisher to handle the odd errant falling ember, watching the end of civilization (local or otherwise) might just be a great spectator sport.

from the award winner: "Sitting on deck chairs in an ivory tower in North London, we observe the collapse of western civilization, the death of style, the pretensions of fashion, the commoditization of cool and the horrific rise of the black-collar worker. Suffering from too much spite and too little money, right now."


(about the award -- past winners)

M. Blind's Draft Beer FAQ

last updated 31 October 2006

History:
31 October 2006: added No.s 4, 14, 17, 19, 22, 25 & 26; older questions renumbered to maintain the narrative flow of the FAQ. (yes, this may be the only FAQ in the history of the internets that tries in some small way to tell a story. suck it up, move on.) 28 questions.
24 October 2006: First Draft, 21 questions.

4. Just how many servings in a keg of Guinness, dammit?
14. How do I build a CO2 tap?
also: what's a draft arm? what about a beer faucet? what diameter tubing do I need?
17. How do I build a Jockey Box or Counterflow Chiller?
19. What about Nitrogen, and Beer Gas? What the heck is Beer Gas, anyway?
22. So what's so special about the extra stuff for Guinness?
25. How do I convert an old refridgerator for a draft beer setup?
26. Please just tell me the one place where I can get all these cool toys. Please?
- more -