Why do I get excited when I cook?
I mean excited?
Cooking is the end, the goal.
Eating is the celebration of achievement.

Deciding that it’s been too long since I tasted roast goose, especially having asserted that it is my favorite meal.
Calling Chris at Roche Brothers downtown, who graciously special orders foods for me. As soon as he can get it in, I answer.
It’s very heavy.
Usually have to make a dedicated trip to and from, a seventeen-minute walk in each direction; but a pretty walk along the Greenway.

Give it plenty of time to defrost and then, the night before, slurry it with baking powder, black pepper, and water.
Back to the reefer overnight.

How exciting in the morning to simply count the hours, 8.5 for this guy, and slide the goose into the 200* oven at 8.30a.
Some hours later the apartment is redolent with the aromas of roasted meat.

Ready at 5.00pm.
Guests arriving at 6.00pm.

Carve it.
Perfect.
Opulent.
Mouths watering.
Senses pleased.
Appetites sated.

So easy when it’s planned.
So rewarding when it’s done.
Why I get excited when I cook.

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Postings Count, Weather Brief, and Dinner
Saturday, March 23, 2019

My 345th consecutive posting, committed to 5,000.

Time is 12.01am.
On Saturday, Boston’s temperature will reach a high of 45* with a feels-like temperature of 37* with flurries.

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Tick Tock : Deep Weather and a Diminishing Calendar

After 345 posts we’re at the 6.90% mark of my commitment, the commitment a different way of marking the passage of time.
Notice how quickly we are reaching the 7% mark.
Tick Tock.
In clock language:
Enjoy today.

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Question of the Day:
What are red, white, and dark meats?

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Chuckle
Two old men are sitting on a park bench feeding the pigeons and talking baseball.
Dom turns to Howard and asks, "Do you think there's baseball in Heaven?"
Howard thinks about it for a minute and replies, "I dunno. But let's make a deal -- if I die first, I'll come back and tell you if there's baseball in Heaven, and if you die first, you do the same."
They shake on it and sadly, a few months later, poor Dom passes on.

Soon afterward, Howard is sitting in the park feeding the pigeons by himself and hears a voice whisper, "Howard... Howard... ."
Howard responds, "Dom! Is that you?"
“Yes it is, Howard," whispers Dom's ghost.

Howard, still amazed, asks, "So, is there baseball in Heaven?"
"Well," says Dom, "About that, I've got good news and bad news."
"Gimme the good news first," says Howard.
Dom says, "Well, there is baseball in Heaven."
Howard says, "That's great! What news could be bad enough to ruin that?"

Dom sighs and whispers, "You're pitching on Friday."

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Love your notes.
Contact me at existentialautotrip@hotmail.com

This from Tommie Toner, So Carolina

You are the best cook I know. . . other than my daughter, Leigh.

I am a cook by reading recipes and the sides of cans, boxes, recipe books, etc.
However, I have always been interested in healthy cooking from the get-go.

I became fascinated with steaming years ago when our children were young. . . .
I bought a simple steamer - three levels - aluminum (not good - didn't know it at that era in my life) and my go-to dinner was steamed chicken (San Francisco style).
Stuffed the chicken with fresh herbs, onions, carrots, garlic, and celery and steamed for about an hour to an hour and a half depending on the size of the chicken.
Served it with rice and steamed broccoli or another green vegetable.

I also steamed beef roast. . . .my colleagues - fellow teachers in the elementary school where I worked at the time would go to the beach for a week every summer to process our work, and I would take the steamer and steam a chicken one night and a chuck roast one night wherein I put a bottle of burgundy to enhance the favor.
Those teachers, now all retired, still remember my bringing that steamer! 😎

I would cook the meat on the bottom level and the vegetables on the top level.
It was healthy eating.
Of course, if we needed potatoes or rice, more than likely was cooked elsewhere.
I wore out two aluminum steamers
Finally bought a stainless steel one when I had the money to do so.

I hope our children and friends don't get brain damage from those years of cooking with aluminum.

Web Meister Responds: There’s certainly no sigh of that, so many years out. Meanwhile, I’m like you, always investigating; always pushing that envelope.

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Answer to the Question of the Day:
What are red, white, and dark meats?

In nutritional science red meat is defined as any meat that has more of the protein myoglobin than "white meat", defined as non-dark meat from chicken (excluding the leg or thigh) or fish.

Pork, is classified as red meat under the nutritional definition.

According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), all meats obtained from mammals (regardless of cut or age) are red meats because they contain more myoglobin than fish or white meat (but not necessarily dark meat) from chicken.

Within poultry, there are two types of meats—white and dark.
The different colors are based on the different locations and uses of the muscles.

White meat can be found within the breast of a chicken or turkey.
Dark muscles are fit to develop endurance, or long-term use, and contain more myoglobin than white muscles, allowing the muscle to use oxygen more efficiently for aerobic respiration.
White meat contains large amounts of protein.

Dark meat contains 2.64 times more saturated fat than white meat, per gram of protein.
One commentator wrote that dark meat contains more vitamins, while a New York Times columnist has stated the two meats are nearly identical in nutritional value, especially when compared with typical red meat.


According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, one ounce of boneless, skinless turkey breast contains about one gram of fat, compared with roughly two grams of fat for an ounce of boneless, skinless thigh.
The numbers go up when the skin is kept in: a chicken thigh, with skin intact, has 13 grams of total fat and 3.5 grams of saturated fat per 3-ounce serving; this is about 20 percent of the recommended maximum daily intake.

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Good Morning on this Twenty-third of March.

Today we talked about the Postings Count, a Weather Brief, and Dinner: Whole Branzino Seared/Broiled in Sesame Oil w Broccoli Rabe.

We talked about approaching the 7% mark of my postings commitment of thirteen years.
We posted a letter from Tommie the Steam Queen, advocating healthy eating and a Dom and Howard joke.
And, finally, we shed some light on the ideas of light, dark, and red meats.
 
And now? Gotta go.

Che vuoi? Le pocketbook?

See you soon.

Your Love