Daily Entries for the week of
Sunday, January 30, 2022
through
Saturday, February 5, 2022
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It’s Saturday, February 5th 2022
Welcome to the 1,346th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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Lead Picture*
Mushroom Gravy
Preparation of a mushroom gravy
Christian Kadluba from Vienna, Austria - Sauce mit Champignons
CC BY-SA 2.0
File:Sauce mit champignons.jpg
Created: 2 January 2007
About this interface | Discussion | Help
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Commentary
In a Monmouth University poll, 70 percent of Americans said they agreed with the statement, “It’s time we accept that Covid is here to stay, and we just need to get on with our lives.”
A growing number of governors, from both parties, seem to agree, The Times reports. “The emergency is over,” Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, has said.
While I agree with the sentiments, we must add here that we must abide by the principles of health that we have learned. For ever, we must mask up in crowded places. For ever, we must produce a vac card to be admitted into indoor dining or gyms or the list of edgy places that we have developed. Wash our hands, constantly. Adopt safeguards for entertaining at home.
We can move forward as long as we take the lessons learned the hard way along with us.
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Reading and Writing
My writing is moving on apace. On my birthday, in March, I will finish my editing and sending out query letters.
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Chuckles and Thoughts
I alone cannot change the world,
but I can cast a stone across the water to create many ripples.
~Mother Teresa
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Dinner/Food/Recipes
We’re looking at the difference between a sauce and a gravy.
Yesterday, sauce. Today gravy, which Wiki defines as a type of sauce.
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Pictures with Captions from our community**
Friends from the Pru
A mix of Microsoft and Blue Bottle
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Short Essay*
Gravy is a sauce, often made from the juices of meats that run naturally during cooking and often thickened with wheat flour or corn starch for added texture.
The gravy may be further colored and flavored with gravy salt (a simple mix of salt and caramel food colouring) or gravy browning (gravy salt dissolved in water) or ready-made cubes and powders can be used as a substitute for natural meat or vegetable extracts.
Canned and instant gravies are also available.
Gravy is commonly served with biscuits, roasts, meatloaf, rice, noodles, chips (fries) and mashed potatoes.
* The Blog Meister selects the topics for the Lead Picture and the Short Essay and then leans heavily or exclusively on Wikipedia to provide the content. The Blog Meister usually edits the entries.
**Pictures with Captions from our community are photos sent in by our blog followers. Feel free to send in yours to domcapossela@hotmail.com
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It’s Friday, February 4th 2022
Welcome to the 1,345th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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Lead Picture*
Tagliatelle al Ragù alla Bolognese
Ivan Vighetto - Own work
Tagliatelle al ragù
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Commentary
Zipline, a leading drone operator, will begin delivering prescription medicines to patients' homes in a suburb of Charlotte, N.C., this year, helping usher in the long-anticipated era of routine drone drops.
Credit is due old-timers who are surviving breathtaking changes in lifestyle in our lifetimes. Cell phones are behind us. Drones are on us. Driverless cars are coming. I like all of it. But it does max us out.
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Reading and Writing
Editing of my manuscript is going well.
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Chuckles and Thoughts
You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.
~Wayne Gretzky
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Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
This from Jim P:
I must say that it is sometimes torture to look at your delicious creations and not be able to taste them. But t is a good kind of torture.
Torture is more please! 😊
Blog meister responds: Good food is wonderful. Thanks for your appreciation.
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Dinner/Food/Recipes
Is there a difference between sauce and gravy?
Ultimately, I think not.
The test is common usage.
Let’s look at definitions of each.
Today: sauce
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Pictures with Captions from our community**
Cassoulet
Another picture from my files that I don’t have the attribution.
But great looking.
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Short Essay*
In cooking, a sauce is a liquid, cream, or semi-solid food, served on or used in preparing other foods. Most sauces are not normally consumed by themselves; they add flavor, moisture, and visual appeal to a dish. Sauce is a French word taken from the Latin salsa, meaning salted. Possibly the oldest recorded European sauce is garum, the fish sauce used by the Ancient Romans, while doubanjiang, the Chinese soy bean paste is mentioned in Rites of Zhou in the 3rd century BC.
Sauces need a liquid component. Sauces are an essential element in cuisines all over the world.
Sauces may be used for sweet or savory dishes. They may be prepared and served cold, like mayonnaise, prepared cold but served lukewarm like pesto, cooked and served warm like bechamel or cooked and served cold like apple sauce. They may be freshly prepared by the cook, especially in restaurants, but today many sauces are sold premade and packaged like Worcestershire sauce, HP Sauce, soy sauce or ketchup. Sauces for salad are called salad dressing. Sauces made by deglazing a pan are called pan sauces.
A chef who specializes in making sauces is called a saucier.
* The Blog Meister selects the topics for the Lead Picture and the Short Essay and then leans heavily or exclusively on Wikipedia to provide the content. The Blog Meister usually edits the entries.
**Pictures with Captions from our community are photos sent in by our blog followers. Feel free to send in yours to domcapossela@hotmail.com
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It’s Thursday, February 3rd 2022
Welcome to the 1,344th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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Lead Picture*
lamb stew
Lamb stew with leeks, lentils, yellow (heirloom) and orange carrots, rosemary, and other spices
FiveRings at English Wikipedia
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Commentary
Stewing and braising are wonderfully simple processes, although time consuming.
I’ll share again, several steps I take to make mine as tasty as I can.
The meat must be seared. Seared. Near burned. High heat. No need to cook the center. Just sear the outside.
Seared in fat. Instead of one fat I use three. Duck fat, olive oil, a pork product, like bacon or pancetta or porchetta. Sometimes butter.
Then it’s stewed on braised in liquid, usually recipes call for water, sometimes for stock. I use three, never water. Two are almost always wine and my own chicken stock, The third, depends on the dish. Sometimes a can of Italian tomatoes.
And I time the ingredients. The meat takes a lot longer than the vegetables so I put the vegetables in the pot an hour or so into the simmer.
A final note, the gravy. My lamb stew produces a rich, thicker gravy. Often with leftovers.
For a braised lamb shank, I will remove the ingredients and reduce the gravy until it’s thick and clinging. I want it all to be gone when the meal is eaten.
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Reading and Writing
My writing is proceeding apace. Come Feb 14 and I will be close to done.
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Chuckles and Thoughts
Whether you think you can or
you think you can't, you're right.
~Henry Ford
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Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
My daughter has become a devotee of the stage, recently, a show on Broadway (a Christmas gift) and a night at the ballet, a $40.00 same-day ticket. Se got a great seat and had a ball.
Blog meister responds: The good life in NYC.
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Dinner/Food/Recipes
Yesterday we published on the braise. Today, the stew.
Some important differences: size of the meat and quantity of liquid. The stew uses smaller pieces and is submerged in the liquids, the gravy.
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Pictures with Captions from our community**
Stew pichelsteiner
I don’t know where this picture came from, actually, but it’s a German stew and certainly timely.
My guess: it’s Wikipedia
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Short Essay*
A stew is a combination of solid food ingredients that have been cooked in liquid and served in the resultant gravy. Ingredients in a stew can include any combination of vegetables and may include meat, especially tougher meats suitable for slow-cooking, such as beef, pork, lamb, poultry, sausages, and seafood. While water can be used as the stew-cooking liquid, stock is also common. A small amount of red wine is sometimes added for flavour. Seasoning and flavourings may also be added. Stews are typically cooked at a relatively low temperature (simmered, not boiled), allowing flavors to mingle.
Stewing is suitable for the least tender cuts of meat that become tender and juicy with the slow moist heat method. This makes it popular in low-cost cooking. Cuts having a certain amount of marbling and gelatinous connective tissue give moist, juicy stews, while lean meat may easily become dry.
Stews are thickened by reduction or with flour, either by coating pieces of meat with flour before searing, or by using a roux or beurre manié, a dough consisting of equal parts of fat and flour. Thickeners like cornstarch, potato starch, or arrowroot may also be used.
Stews are similar to soups, and in some cases there may not be a clear distinction between the two. Generally, stews have less liquid than soups, are much thicker and require longer cooking over low heat. While soups are almost always served in a bowl, stews may be thick enough to be served on a plate with the gravy as a sauce over the solid ingredients.
* The Blog Meister selects the topics for the Lead Picture and the Short Essay and then leans heavily or exclusively on Wikipedia to provide the content. The Blog Meister usually edits the entries.
**Pictures with Captions from our community are photos sent in by our blog followers. Feel free to send in yours to domcapossela@hotmail.com
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It’s Wednesday, February 2nd 2022
Welcome to the 1,343rd consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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Lead Picture*
Braised pot roast
FiveRings - Own work
Beef top round with parsnips, carrots, onion, gold beets & rutabega
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Commentary
A huge 40% drop in Omicron cases since January 3. Let’s all pray that the trend continues. In Massachusetts, The 7-day average test positivity came in at 7.43% Monday, Feb 1, down from the 8.92% reported on Friday and 11% on Monday last.
Boosted citizens are three times more protected from Omicron than they are from the flu or auto death. And that goes of older people as well.
For wellness sake, get boosted!
BTW: The vaccines not only prevent death, but lower the risks of hospitalization by extreme percentages. Vaccination also reduces the risk of long Covid to very low levels.
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Reading and Writing
On Monday I listed seven scenes that bear reviewing with an eye to shortening the scenes, or at least make sure they are both relevant and well-written, and this includes striking extra words.
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Chuckles and Thoughts
Winning isn't everything, but
wanting to win is.
~Vince Lombardi
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Dinner/Food/Recipes
What’s the difference between a braise and a stew? Today we’re discussing braising.
Tomorrow we’ll publish stewing.
Both are slow processes. Stews use liquids to cover the meats and use pieces. Braising uses less liquid and usually a single piece or large pieces of meat.
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Pictures with Captions from our community**
Braised lamb shank and risotto
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Short Essay*
Braising (from the French word braiser) is a combination-cooking method that uses both wet and dry heats: typically, the food is first browned at a high temperature, then simmered in a covered pot in cooking liquid (such as wine, broth, coconut milk or beer). It is similar to stewing, but braising is done with less liquid and usually used for larger cuts of meat. Braising of meat is often referred to as pot roasting, though some authors make a distinction between the two methods, based on whether additional liquid is added. Osso buco and coq au vin are well known braised meat dishes, and the technique can be used to prepare fish, tempeh, tofu or fruits and vegetables.
Method
Braising relies on heat, time, and moisture to break down the tough connective tissue (collagen) that binds together the muscle fibers in meat, making it an ideal way to cook tougher, more affordable cuts. Many classic braised dishes (e.g., coq au vin) are highly evolved methods of cooking tough and otherwise unpalatable foods. Both pressure cooking and slow cooking (e.g. in a crockpot) are forms of braising.
Techniques
Most braises follow the same basic steps. The food to be braised (meats, vegetables, mushrooms, etc.) is first pan-seared to brown its surface and enhance its flavor (through the Maillard reaction). If the food will not produce enough liquid of its own, a certain amount of cooking liquid that often includes an acidic element (e.g., tomatoes, beer, balsamic vinegar, wine) is added to the pot, often with stock. A classic braise is done with a relatively whole cut of meat, and the braising liquid will cover two-thirds of the food in the pan. The dish is then covered and cooked at a very low simmer until the meat becomes so tender that it can be "cut" with just the gentlest of pressure from a fork (versus a knife). Often the cooking liquid is finished to create a sauce or gravy as well.
Sometimes foods with high water content (particularly vegetables) can be cooked in their own juices, making the addition of liquid unnecessary.
A successful braise intermingles the flavors of the foods being cooked with those of the cooking liquid. This cooking method dissolves the meat's collagen into gelatin, which can greatly enrich and thicken the liquid. Braising is economical (as it allows the use of tough and inexpensive cuts), and efficient (as it often enables an entire meal to be prepared in a single pot or pan).
Braised foods
Braised dishes often familiar to Westerners include pot roast, Red braised pork belly, Swiss steak, chicken cacciatore, goulash, Carbonade Flamande, coq au vin, sauerbraten, beef bourguignon, beef brisket, oxtail, and tajines, among others.
Braising is used extensively in the cuisines of Asia, particularly Chinese cuisine,[6] Vietnamese cuisine and Taiwanese cuisine, where soy sauce (or in Vietnam, soy sauce and fish sauce) is often added to the braising liquid.
* The Blog Meister selects the topics for the Lead Picture and the Short Essay and then leans heavily or exclusively on Wikipedia to provide the content. The Blog Meister usually edits the entries.
**Pictures with Captions from our community are photos sent in by our blog followers. Feel free to send in yours to domcapossela@hotmail.com
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It’s Tuesday, February 1st 2022
Welcome to the 1,342nd consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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Lead Picture*
Superman
Superman in Superman: Secret Origins (October 2010). Art by Gary Frank and Jon Sibal.
DC Comics - comicsalliance.com
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Commentary
If I were to write a manual of wellness if would have five chapters: diet, walking, power exercise, creative work, social intercourse. Diet based around foods that we love to eat and are good for us. Walking based on choosing to walk whenever it’s at all possible. Power exercise meaning an ability to generate force quickly, like throwing a baseball or kicking a soccer ball or, of course, weightlifting. Creative work, whether it’s yard work or cooking or writing or work around the house. And social intercourse, keeping in touch with your family and friends.
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Reading and Writing
I am reading more regularly now that I have a sauna. I spend two sessions, ten minutes each, in the auna, reading one of my books. I am writing well, yoo.
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Chuckles and Thoughts
I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
~Maya Angelou
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Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
Two correspondences related to the arts. My daughter texted that on Saturday she was lucky enough to get a $40.00 ‘same day’ ticket to the NYC Ballet. She loved it. I got an offer to use a couple of tickets to Pretty Woman at the Boston Opera House for Sunday afternoon. An offer I had to pass on, suffering as I was from a pretty severe Charlie horse.
Blog meister responds: Delighted to have art-loving people among my friends.
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Pictures with Captions from our community**
Comic book convention 20219
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Dinner/Food/Recipes
Saturday I had a North End Gravy for dinner that included generous oieces of pig’s feet and chicken feet. Both food items were cut and cooked into very small pieces. It was one of the best gravies I ever ate.
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Short Essay*
Superman is a superhero who appears in American comic books published by DC Comics. The character was created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, and debuted in the comic book Action Comics #1 (cover-dated June 1938 and published April 18, 1938). Superman has been adapted to a number of other media which includes radio serials, novels, movies, television shows and theatre.
Superman was born on the fictional planet Krypton and was named Kal-El. As a baby, his parents sent him to Earth in a small spaceship moments before Krypton was destroyed in a natural cataclysm. His ship landed in the American countryside, near the fictional town of Smallville. He was found and adopted by farmers Jonathan and Martha Kent, who named him Clark Kent. Clark developed various superhuman abilities, such as incredible strength and impervious skin. His adoptive parents advised him to use his abilities for the benefit of humanity, and he decided to fight crime. To protect his personal life, he changes into a colorful costume and uses the alias "Superman" when fighting crime. Clark resides in the fictional American city of Metropolis, where he works as a journalist for the Daily Planet. Superman's supporting characters include his love interest and fellow journalist Lois Lane, Daily Planet photographer Jimmy Olsen and editor-in-chief Perry White, and his arch-enemy Lex Luthor.
Superman is the classic archetype of the superhero character: he wears an outlandish costume, uses a codename, and fights evil with the aid of extraordinary abilities. Although there are earlier characters who arguably fit this definition, it was Superman who popularized the superhero genre and established its conventions. He was the best-selling superhero character in American comic books up until the 1980s.
* The Blog Meister selects the topics for the Lead Picture and the Short Essay and then leans heavily or exclusively on Wikipedia to provide the content. The Blog Meister usually edits the entries.
**Pictures with Captions from our community are photos sent in by our blog followers. Feel free to send in yours to domcapossela@hotmail.com
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It’s Monday, January 31, 2022
Welcome to the 1,342nd consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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Lead Picture*
James Thurber
Thurber in 1954
Fred Palumbo, World Telegram staff photographer - Library of Congress. New York World-Telegram & Sun Collection. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3c12049
James Thurber, American writer
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Commentary
My daughter is becoming me. She’s falling in love with wine. I’ve been suggesting that she takes a wine tasting course for beginners.
These courses are available in every big city. Because they are often run by people in the wine business who are looking to develop clients for their products, the courses are usually quite reasonable.
I began my own wine tasting decades ago when I first opened Dom’s and joined a myriad of groups, from the basic beginners, to a most esoteric group of the best wine palates in Boston, drinking wines back then that today are priced out of reach. But it was the beginners’ course that had the most profound impact on me; effecting the most dramatic changes in my lifestyle.
The only other class that had an analogous impact on me was, with daughter Katherine in hand, a class in dog training. I think we took the course @ Petsmart. It was terrific. From there, we took two more advanced classes. The most fundamental impact it had on us was that taking our dog for a walk, we always led. The dog always followed. There was no resisting the leash, no alternative path for the dog. Walking was a pleasure, not a battle.
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Reading and Writing
So I finished my first goal on the rewrite: getting all of the manuscripts scenes in line as to date, time, setting, character.
Next goal is to revisit the manuscript and make clear how each scene contributes to the plot. Of course, first I had to define the plot: the emergence of our hero, Dee, (Diana is her name in the first part of the story) as the world’s best hope for defeating Satan’s attack on humanity. While I’m looking at each scene, I’m to make sure that it isn’t longer than it ought to be.
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Chuckles and Thoughts
The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
Lots of mail revolving around this classic link:
James Thurber: ‘It’s a naïve domestic Burgundy…’ - The Drinks Business
Blog meister responds: No one who doesn’t have this memorized may call themselves educated.
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Dinner/Food/Recipes
I had a North End Gravy on Saturday. Along with my classic meatballs and a piece of top round on sale, I boiled (for tenderizing) then fried (for flavor) some chicken and pigs’ feet and then simmered them for 90minutes with the rest of the gravy.
If you are a bone-picker, you will be in heaven, as I was. If you are getting older, your sense of well-bring will increase by the list of nutrients you’ll be ingesting, most notable, needed collagen, right from the barnyard’s toes.
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Pictures with Captions from our community**
T bone seared
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Short Essay*
James Grover Thurber (December 8, 1894 – November 2, 1961) was an American cartoonist, author, humorist, journalist, playwright, and celebrated wit. He was best known for his cartoons and short stories, published mainly in The New Yorker and collected in his numerous books.
Thurber was one of the most popular humorists of his time and celebrated the comic frustrations and eccentricities of ordinary people. His works have frequently been adapted into films, including The Male Animal (1942), The Battle of the Sexes (1959, based on Thurber's "The Catbird Seat"), and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (adapted twice, in 1947 and in 2013).
* The Blog Meister selects the topics for the Lead Picture and the Short Essay and then leans heavily or exclusively on Wikipedia to provide the content. The Blog Meister usually edits the entries.
**Pictures with Captions from our community are photos sent in by our blog followers. Feel free to send in yours to domcapossela@hotmail.com
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It’s Sunday, January 30, 2022
Welcome to the 1,341st consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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Lead Picture*
Pigs’ feet
Pigs' trotters, served as Irish-style Crubeens in Illinois
Helen - Flickr: Crubeens
What the Clancy Brothers called the original fast food of Ireland.
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Commentary
The dire social situation in NYC is being underreported.
We hear about the seventeen deaths in the Brooklyn fire and the numerous police officers who recently have been shot down.
We’re not hearing about the young woman who was spat on by a homeless person as the fringes of the NYC society, the homeless and mentally unbalanced, take to the streets and to some buildings, harassing and attacking mainstream citizens.
My NYC resident 23-year-old daughter no longer enters Central Park and feels unsafe in places she was comfortable before this societal stumble.
It was her girlfriend who was spat upon after the pair had separated to head home.
I watched the first episode of ‘The Gilded Age’ TV series from Julian Fellowes, (Downton Abbey) and did not find it wonderful. But it’s well set and culturally interesting. I’ll continue watching, but not recommending.
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Reading and Writing
I am reading in my sauna. I sit for 10-minute intervals @ 120*.
Enough to thoroughly warm me up without getting close to a sweat.
A lovely break.
Kinda what I was hoping for when considering my sons’ offer.
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Chuckles and Thoughts
The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me.
~Ayn Rand
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Dinner/Food/Recipes
After unsuccessfully looking closer to home for the pork feet and chicken feet I needed for a couple of recipes I wanted to make, I walked down to the ethnic Chinese supermarket in the South End. There, both commanded prime space in the butcher shop. I was happy. I also bought some quality soy sauce and tiger shrimp.
First I gently boiled the feet, 1 hour for the pig, 30 minutes for the chicken. Ready to now to cook.
I made a lima bean, cabbage, and kale soup with pieces of both pig and chicken feet.
And I made a North End gravy with some of both.
Notice that both recipes call for additional long-cooking of the feet.
Awesome!
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Community Photos**
Edgar and his Raven
The sculpture is on Charles and Boylston Streets in Boston, opposite the Boston Common.
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Short Essay*
A pig's trotter, also known as a pettitoe, or sometimes known as a pig's foot, is the culinary term for the foot of a pig. The cuts are used in various dishes around the world, and experienced a resurgence in the late 2000s.
Before sale, the trotters are cleaned and typically have the hairs pulled with a hot tank and beaters. They are often used in cooking to make stocks, as they add thickness to gravy, although they are also served as a normal cut of meat. In Puerto Rico, a tomato-based stew of pigs' trotters with chickpeas is called Patitas de Cerdo. Sometimes potatoes or butternut are added. Chef Marco Pierre White has long served trotters at his restaurants, based on the original recipe of mentor Pierre Koffmann. In the New York City restaurant Hakata Tonton, 33 of the 39 dishes served contain pigs' trotters.
Following the late-2000s financial crisis, there has been a boom in popularity of pigs' trotters in the United Kingdom as a revival in cheap meat recipes occurred. In 2008, British supermarket Waitrose reintroduced trotters to its stores, and found that they quickly became popular. In 2009, Pierre Koffmann set up a pop-up restaurant, and found that diners ate an entire month's stock of 500 pigs' trotters in less than a week.
In Norwegian tradition, pigs feet are salted and boiled and served as syltelabb. This is a pre-Christmas dish because the pig was slaughtered before Christmas, and everything was used. Today syltelabb is for enthusiasts.
*The Blog Meister selects the topics for the Lead Picture and the Short Essay and then leans heavily or exclusively on Wikipedia to provide the content. The Blog Meister usually edits the entries.
**Community Pictures with Captions are sent in by our followers. Feel free to send in yours to domcapossela@hotmail.com
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