We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
In 1952, Armon M. Sweat, Jr., a member of the Texas House of Representatives, was asked about his position on whiskey. What follows is his exact answer (taken from the Political Archives of Texas):
"If you mean whiskey, the devil's brew, the poison scourge, the bloody monster that defiles innocence, dethrones reason, destroys the home, creates misery and poverty, yea, literally takes the bread from the mouths of little children; if you mean that evil drink that topples Christian men and women from the pinnacles of righteous and gracious living into the bottomless pit of degradation, shame, despair, helplessness, and hopelessness, then, my friend, I am opposed to it with every fiber of my being.
However, if by whiskey you mean the lubricant of conversation, the philosophic juice, the elixir of life, the liquid that is consumed when good fellows get together, that puts a song in their hearts and the warm glow of contentment in their eyes; if you mean Christmas cheer, the stimulating sip that puts a little spring in the step of anelderly gentleman on a frosty morning; if you mean that drink that enables man to magnify his joy, and to forget life's great tragedies and heartbreaks and sorrow; if you mean that drink the sale of which pours into Texas treasuries untold millions of dollars each year, that provides tender care for our little crippled children, our blind, our deaf, our dumb, our pitifully aged and infirm, to build the finest highways, hospitals, universities, and community colleges in this nation, then my friend, I am absolutely, unequivocally in favor of it.
This is my position, and as always, I refuse to compromise on matters of principle."
Scoop of the best vanilla ice cream you can find or make. Splash a shot of the best whisky you can afford on top. Then dust with finely-ground (powdered) espresso coffee.
Who knew that Italians drink Scotch? According to government guidelines, this recipe contains all three basic food groups: dairy, alcohol, and caffeine.
The "Brown Sauces" for meat are one of the four or five "Mother Sauces" in European cuisine. Really, French cuisine, because Italian cuisine has no original complex sauces (except Bolognese), and there is no such thing as English cuisine.
Readers know that my old stand-by brown sauce, Gibier, is an all-purpose concoction for game birds, chicken, and meat. Not to mention roast turkey. Also as a base for beef bourguignon or a soupy thing for meat ravioli. Depends on how much you want to reduce it for the purpose. Tastes like the soul of the earth.
In my (admittedly-amateur) opinion, brown sauces are made with roasted veal bones/stock, venison or pork bones, and/or poultry bones/stock, but not beef. Gotta roast the bones. I freeze it, but no real chef would do that.
What about "Steak Sauce"? If you go to a great steak&chop place like Peter Lugar's in Brooklyn, they put a bottle of their sauce on the table. Delicious stuff, but market steak sauces tend to overwhelm the meat in my view. If it's great meat, that's an error.
I happen to love corned beef and cabbage (plus potatoes) - as long as there is plenty of horseradish mustard and beer.
The real name of the meal is New England Boiled Dinner. I cook it all together in a giant pot. If the beef needs a knife, it's underdone. I think it should almost crumble.
I will make some for my Irish father-in-law tomorrow. No Guiness, though. It really does not go with food in my opinion. Heck, it's a meal in itself. In Irish pubs, they throw one or two raw eggs in it, stir it up, and call it breakfast.
Northern Italian menu on restaurant row. The Fegato alla Veneziana (Calve's Liver, Venetian-style) was the best I've ever had. Everybody with us agreed. The Vitello tonnato (Veal with Tuna Sauce) was also delicious. Not quite as good as Mrs. BD makes, but very tasty and delicate.
They do have a popular pasta-tasting menu item but when we do fine Italian, we usually don't bother with pasta. Who needs it, with so many other tastier, less-filling things?
We recommend the cheerful place. It's just a few steps from Barbetta (Since 1906) which is equally good but more formal, hushed, less fun (and more expensive).
Readers know that when the Bird Dog family travels, we often stay clear of the madding crowds. It is a preference for certain sorts of things, roads less traveled and all that.
When I get my photos in order (I took around 40 snaps which is a lot for me, mostly corny landscapes), I will show and tell about some parts of Barbados many visitors never see, far from the beach resorts and the golf courses but never far from Flying Fish Sandwiches and rum. This pic from one of our hikes, along the north coast:
Bajan Rum Punch - The recipe is so deeply ingrained in Barbados' culture that its recipe is a well-known rhyme: "One of sour, two of sweet, three of strong, four of weak."
(Makes about 2 1/2 quarts)
1 cup freshly squeezed lime juice 2 cups simple syrup (equal parts white sugar and water, heated until sugar dissolves) 3 cups Barbados rum (Clear or amber, and just 2 cups if you want to enjoy more of it) 4 cups water (or partly orange juice or papaya, or mango...) A few dashes of Angostura bitters Grated nutmeg
I am not a big pasta fan, but if you want to try one pasta dish as a primi in Sicily, this is it. Bucatini seems to be the typico pasta for this. Fennell (finocchio) grows wild all over Sicily. A roadside weed.
Recipe here., but, better, a very good instructional video here. The guy claims tinned sardines work as well as fresh, but I dunno. I can buy fresh sardines (and fresh anchovies) here. Anyway, the video makes me hungry.
Our seafood shop sends a guy down to Brighton Beach before each Christmas and New Year's Day to pick up 250 gm. tins of fresh Russian caviar from the Russian shops. (Brooklyn's Brighton Beach is heavily Russian immigrants.) You just have to phone in and pre-order yours from our guy. It's the farmed variety nowadays, which is a good thing.
We can have those large tins of fresh malossol (fresh, unsalted Sturgeon caviar) for $150 each. Mind you, that could be $800-$1000 at Petrossian. If you go to Brighton Beach yourself, you can buy a tin of Russian for as little as $80. Yes, it is the real deal. Amazing. I have never been to Brighton Beach but I hear that if you like Russian food, it's better there than in Moscow.
Handy tip from my chef friend for the holidays: The rule is Four Days in the Fridge.
You include the day you made it in the 4 days. After that, it's garbage. I have learned this over the years from unfortunate experience - especially with Thanksgiving leftovers.
Mark Steyn was funny the other day, explaining how the Customs agents confiscated three Buches de Noel he tried to bring from Quebec to his home in New Hampshire. He observed that if he had brought three Somalis or Syrians without documents instead of three Buches, it would have been no problem.
Order yours now from your local bakery and it will be ready when you need it. They will make them whatever length you need. It's not Christmas without one.
If you really want to ruin Christmas season, try making one yourself. This job is for professionals.
I forgot to mention Caviar Pie in my recent authoritative American caviar post. This decadent concoction is perfect for a brunch, hors d'oevres, or munchies.
Some caterers make Caviar Pie which looks perfect, round, and daintily-finished, but the ones I've had at fancy New Year's Day cocktail brunches look a little raggedy, as in this photo. They don't have to look good because as soon as they are attacked by people armed with cheese knives or crackers it's messy anyway.
You scoop a piece out and put it on toasts, or bagel chips, or whatever. It goes fast.
As usual, one uses the most expensive caviar one can afford - or not afford.
Chopped red onion is key. Here's one recipe, but you can google for more. It's a real meal too if you want, with a glass of champagne. The height of decadence +/- seduction.
My annual Christmas present for my Dad used to be a tin from Petrossian. Worth every penny for the delight it provides.
Chefs are extremely particular about their knives. They even travel with them if they might have to spend a little time in a kitchen.
My chef friend loves her Gunter-Wilhelms. They are not the most expensive professional knives (the best Japanese sets go for $2000+), but she says the Gunters have the heft and authority that she likes.
We always do two turkeys, one on the grill over a wood and charcoal fire, and one stuffed and in the oven. We make sure there is an overabundance of TG food so those who want to have a next-day mini Thanksgiving at home can have one.
Since stuffing is what a TG meal is really all about, I made three varieties this year. I cheated and did it the easy way with those Pepperidge Farm unseasoned croutons. Immoral I know but, dammit, it's supposed to be fun, not work.
So I made three pans of stuffings - one giblet with the livers, one sausage, and one fruit. The fruity one was most popular, I think. I used half of it to stuff the oven bird.
I soaked a bag of quartered dried apricots and a box of currants in white wine for a few hours (had no Bourbon which is recommended, and some raisins would have been good too), chopped up about 2 cups of walnuts. Sauteed a big onion and some celery (some apple chunks would have been good also). Had a lot of chopped fresh parsley, and threw it all into the aluminum pan with the croutons with 2 cups of fresh cranberries.
Then lots of ground pepper, and a tsp each of ground clove, cinnamon, and ginger. Added three eggs. Toss and mix with hands, then add enough warm turkey or chicken broth (with half or a whole stick of melted butter) to make it a little soggy, and toss again.
You might like it. I think I'll do this again for Christmas instead of our usual standing pork rib roast.
Photo is my grilled turkey. Most of the black is the bacon I covered it with. I filled the cavity with all the beer, chicken broth, and honey it could hold, and put the rest in the pan. Had to add more beer as it cooked. Lots of liquid keeps it from drying out. Does bacon go with turkey? Duh. The sauce in that pan was dynamite. I don't know why I bother with a dull oven-baked turkey.
In New England, Indian Pudding is as essential a part of Thanksgiving dinner as Pumpkin or Squash Pie. Great stuff, if you like the flavor of molasses. It's not just for Thanksgiving.
It's called "Indian" because it is made with corn (maize) meal - the staple food of North American Indians. It's easy to forget that they were not mainly hunter-gatherers, but farmers with 100-acre fields. Farmers, with their main amusement being killing, raping, and torturing members of neighboring tribes. A cultural thing.
Simple rustic ingredients. No sugar? You use molasses. No flour? You use corn meal. The only trick is to make sure it is neither too firm nor too runny. Serve warm with ice cream or whipped cream.
My buddies with whom we did the big pig roast party last summer did a Turkey Fry party last weekend. Deep-fried seventeen 12-13-lb. turkeys (had to fit them in the frying cylinders - we had a 2-cylinder fryer set-up). Had around 100 guests, and they each had to bring an hors d'oevres or a dessert, and some wine or beer. Lots of cornbread and stuff.
I decided that small turkeys are better and easier to manage. I usually cook 2 big ones for TG, but I think I'll go for 3 small ones this year. They cook faster, are maybe more tender, and you can gnaw on the legs like chicken legs.
It was outdoors of course, about 25 degrees F, with torches, firepits, and outdoor fireplace blazing. Gals in their parkas. What are we? Yankee gentry rednecks? Well, we just like informal fun I guess.
That's a good party. The turkeys? Cajun rub, and all thoroughly and I mean thoroughly injected with Cajun spices to the point that Mrs. BD had trouble with it but, as I said, first turkeys I ever ate that did not taste like cardboard or smoke (I cook mine on barby with wood - smokey turkey).
This week we will review turkey injections and rubs (necessary for a good meal). Due to various circumstances, the Maggie's HQ will have a small group this year I think, about 13-15 people instead of 25. We'll invite some friends to fill it out. Always need hands to clean up...
On Sunday night, Mrs. BD had an all-pumpkin supper: Spicy Pumpkin-Apple Soup, Pumpkin Ravioli, and a Profiterole with Pumpkin Ice Cream. It's Pumpkin season, and Pumpkin is good food.
Pumpkin is a winter squash whose original small plant is native to the Americas. For the Eastern American Indians, winter squashes were one of the Three sisters: Squash, Corn (Maize), and Beans.Indians ate healthy, organic whole foods despite, or because, they were genetically-modified foods. They didn't live very long, though. Indians in their 50s were old men while men in their 50s and 60s and 70s today run marathons, pump iron, and climb Alps. My neighbor climbed all of the Dolomites in his 80s by eating steak.
All of those Indian crops had been greatly genetically-modified over 2,000+ years by Native American geneticists, because the wild plants they started with were weeds, hardly worth bothering with. Of course, what we grow now has been greatly improved from the Indian versions.
All humans knew about genetics long before Mendel explained it.
This is about warm pasta dishes, not cold. Room temperature pasta dishes like Nicoise are nice - but that is from Nice, not Italy.
I do not care for a pasta dish as a meal. It makes me feel full and lazy. I don't mind the way the Italians do it - and the way it was intended - which is as a small plate tasty treat as a Primo. Maybe 4-6 forks' worth. That's a meal's carbs, because the Secondi usually doesn't have any. Just meat, with some vegetables in oil on the side.
Southern Italians eat pasta, but they don't eat much of it when they do. Maybe the equivalent volume of a potato. Lasagna (which is Southern Italian) is served as a small Primo. - a little 3-or 4-inch square.
Sicily is not big on pasta. They make a few classics, like with sardines or clams, but do more rice and couscous as primi. On the mainland, the further north you go the less pasta there is. They do more rice (esp. risotto), gnocchi, and polenta for their primi.
Anyway, an Italian meal with a primo and secondo - and wine or beer - is lunchtime, not supper. (Italian breakfast is typically just an espresso or a latte - cappuccino - with a biscotti. Suppers are light, like a soup and lunch leftovers.) Italians tend not be be fat and even the elderly women mostly tend to look pretty spry except for the ones who stay home all day cooking for their relatives because they taste things all day long.
I married into a family with some roots in Caserta (lots of ziti and spaghetti pasta down there) and I know the rules:
- When pasta is cooked al dente, you take it out of the pot with pasta-grabbers and dump it directly into the saucepan with the sauce. Then you mix it with the sauce with the heat on. You don't drain pasta.
- Depending on the volume of sauce you have made, you dump a cup or half-cup of the pasta water into the pasta-sauce mix, and slop it all together with the pasta-grabber (with the heat on). Enough pasta water to be right. Heat is on. The pasta water binds it all together and helps the sauce coat the pasta completely.
What is the ultimate pasta Primo? The festive Timballo. I have never had a slice of one, and probably never will have the chance because it's not a restaurant item.
Tomato sauces? Yuk. Cristoforo Columbo and his pals, in my view, wrecked Italian cooking by bringing the tomato back from Central America. Not to mention the Cultural Appropriation sin of putting the Mayan tomato in Italian food. But wait - the Italians stole pizza from the Greeks? And pasta from China. Is there anything that college kitchens will be able to feed the brats now? I mean, like, ice cream is Egyptian and yoghurt is Turkish. Let them eat gluten-free cake.
DON'T YOU LOVE A MAN OF PRINCIPLES???
Restaurants 
We'll have 12 or so for after-church 
The "Brown Sauces" for meat are one of the
Mark Steyn was funny the other day, explaining how the Customs agents confiscated three Buches de Noel he tried to bring from Quebec to his home in New Hampshire. He observed that if he had brought three Somalis or Syrians without documents instead of three Buches, it would have been no problem.
I forgot to mention Caviar Pie in my recent 
Chefs are extremely particular about their knives. They even travel with them if they might have to spend a little time in a kitchen. 
We always do two turkeys, one on the grill over a wood and charcoal fire, and one stuffed and in the oven. We make sure there is an overabundance of TG food so those who want to have a next-day mini Thanksgiving at home can have one.
In New England, Indian Pudding is as essential a part of Thanksgiving dinner as Pumpkin or Squash Pie. Great stuff, if you like the flavor of molasses. It's not just for Thanksgiving.
This is about warm pasta dishes, not cold. Room temperature pasta dishes like Nicoise are nice - but that is from Nice, not Italy. 