You know its bad when when...

I am nervous and have stress due to the upcoming defense of my "dry tome".
As a result, I have had a chronic stomach ache for two days, and all food sits like lumps of clay.
Thus, my appetite is affected. I am usually on of those people who eats because of stress, so this is actually kind of a novelty!

I thought it was better than this...

Does it count that I am listening to the "Whiskey in the Jar" by Metallica?

A fine Mahock to you all.

Apparently today is "blog action day".
It is only a coincidence that I post. After all, why expect "Action" on a Monday?

Pork Hocks. I have a strange fascination. Fleshy, soooo Fleshy, with skin that looks like an albino cowboy (Leathery but white). And so many bones! All that gooey marrow and gelatin just waiting to be stewed, and ward off future arthritis (or so I've read).

Apparently, bone broth contains more-absorbable calcium. However, this is a "fact" posted by Broth Endorsers, and may or may not have scientific merit. In spite, from a food perspective, broth should be embraced, and MSG shunned.

I wanted broth. Just to drink, like a beverage. My own personal Bovril. It is sometimes more satisfying than soup, and more nourishing than tea (no, I am not an old lady, merely practicing). My single hock was slow cooked overnight with celery, onions, carrots, S&P, garlic and loads of fresh savory spice (thyme, rosemary, sage). I got a great broth, which was my goal. Mission accomplished (very little fat by the way).

I am now left with this big chunk of boiled meat with skin on. I am not a fan of boiled meat. It is stringy, sad, and, well, boiled. However, I hate Wasting Food more than I hate Boiled Meat. It disgusts me to read recipes for pork hock that tell you to throw all the skin pieces away and just keep some meat bits. This cannot be right, I have eaten several Chinese hock dishes that have had savory skin or nicely-seasoned chewy bits.

And so begins the experiment.
I made a sauce of goo. The classic miscellaneous improvised BBQ sauce that manages to incorporate every sugary-based condiment you have in the house at the time. Honey garlic sauce, oyster sauce, sherry, molasses, brown sugar, garlic, balsamic, tomato juice, ginger, other stuff that appeared... I marinated my bone-free meat chunks in said goo and then cooked in the oven for ~50 minutes at 350. It got dark, gooey, chewy, and tastes like awesome BBQ. I don't know if I can duplicate it, but it was fun. I have made two meals out of one. Thus, A Fine Mahock to you all.

How my garden betrayed me.

I have been neglecting my rants, I have been writing a dry tome that has been sucking my humorly goodness. Tome is almost done and humor is starting to run up, like sap tubes in spring.

I get really pissed off at food fads. Like, "Oh, Rack of Lamb is so 1999, ifyoumust, try the wild boar chop." Preferably with some currently accepted veg item, and a starch that needs the poisons boiled out of it (Taro anyone?). We have the potato; its awesome, why change?

This brings me to Arugula. How tired am I of hearing about Arugula. It is a humble green, no more special than Cress or Mustard, or even the haughty, bitter Endive (the green squiggly kind, not the posh white stuff that costs 10$ a LB). Arugula has no more appeal than a nobel romaine, the ethereal butter lettuce, or the delicate, and classically solid, Leaf (green or red).

But have you been able to watch a food show without this ubiquitous chlorophyll?
Posh salads, weird stirs fries, even as soup garnish; Arugula is everywhere, and don't you dare say a bad thing about it.

This brings me to a tangent. I started a garden. In August. Normal, prepared people don't start gardens in August, but I had to have one NOW, and decided it would be a good way to secure a plot for Next Year. Thus, the desperate scramble to plant something that would grow in a couple of months time. Thus, I go armed with radishes and lettuce mix.

I watered and weeded a few times, grew some successful radishes, and have some aphidey cabbage plants. However, I was forced to ignore the plot for a while (due to said Tome), and didn't visit for ~ 2 1/2 weeks. When I went back, I was pleased to find large quantities of this fresh bright green that had grown from the mesclun mix.

I took a grocery bag of this green home, thinking, naively, that it was mustard greens. I Googled it. Not mustard greens. Arugula. Vast stupid quantities of healthy, enthusiastic, dark green Arugula. The romaines and leafs were tragic, limp, yellowish.

I guess there is a reason that Arugula has taken over.

I smell a conspiracy, easier to grow? In five years it will be the new Iceberg. Enjoy the pedestal, my green friend. Soon, you too will go the way of Baby carrots and microgreens, only to be replaced by something "current". Like food loses its nutrition because it goes "out of style".

Mmmmmm, Marketing.

My greatest accomplishment today was going to the Kwik-E-Mart. These are 7-11 s converted to the convenience store with the Simpson's theme in preparation for the upcoming movie premiere. There is only one in Canada, and it is a 20 minute bus ride from where I live. Woo Hoo!

Therefore, as a Simpson's fan for many years, it is mandatory that I attend at least once and drink a squishy with a hot dog. A popular place, there was a line up to get into the door, but at least I was not the only dork with a camera...

The Good, The Wierd, and The Slimy, brought to you by Me and The Man.

And now for the long-awaited results of the aforementioned pizza, as well as other amusing sundries regarding Things That Have Happened With Food during the past week.

1) The Famous Pizza.
Let me remind you that this is all from scratch. Now purists out there might argue, The Man did not grind his own wheat, or make his own cheese, but neither did he knock-up the cow to produce the calf that made the milk. Nor did he plant the fields, or create the universe in general (though he may act like it sometimes). In short, scratch means I bought flour and cheese, and all the rest is fresh veg from our great local produce store.

The Man has a good touch with dough, where mine tends to Dwarf Bread. The crust was very simple, flour, yeast, salt, water and rose to a fluffy soft, elastic perfection. Topped with a sauce of fresh Roma tomatoes, garlic, basil, various classic pizza veg, smoked farmers sausage and mozarella. It was pizza from the Gods. The Young One was given the test pizza topped with scallions, green pepper and anchovies, as per his instruction. Only nine and already he has a thing for anchovies… The innovation was to cook it in a cast iron frying pan so the bottom gets crustillitious.

And thus began a week of pizza gluttony. Bales of Dough sat in the fridge waiting for the moment when they would be chosen to be converted into more and more pizza. These were glory days with no end in sight.
“Lets eat Pizza forever”, we said.

Alas, for our greed, The Man was punished. Perhaps, rather than being from the Gods, it was meant for them, since the pizza betrayed him in the End. It happened innocently enough, while removing the final pie from the oven. The handle of the Cast Iron pan was not entirely covered by the oven mitt, and a slight slip caused the handle to come in contact with skin. 450 degree cast iron is hot and burns instantly.

Now The Man is sporting a Burn Bubble the size of a quarter, and nursing within his soul, the ultimate hurt that the pizza did not love him as much as he loved it. The pizza burst his bubble. Lets hope it leaves the burn alone.

2) The Wierd
I decided to dabble in baby octopus again. Not having ever eaten it when it was made by someone who is competent at cooking it, I am not sure if I suck at it, or what it is supposed to taste like. I draw on my calamari experience and decide to coat it in corn starch and fry it in my wok. I think they were O.K. Greasy, crunchy things sprayed with lemon rarely go awry. They had an appropriate fishy flavor that was reminiscent of fast food fish house. Fun, rubbery and suited my non-meat mood. It probably worked because of the tartar-style sauce of Mayo (yes, store bought, and yes, I can make it myself), terragon, garlic olive oil, and dill pickles. The Young One certainly liked them, and I have had much worse at a so-called seafood restaurant.
Would I serve them to a customer? Probably not until I tweak the recipe, perhaps braising them first would be better to tenderize the meat a little.
Will I try again? Absolutely yes, they are just so irresistably cute....

(not as cute as quails, but much less tragic.)

Vat Ham is always in your blind spot.

I received a compliment on my healthy lunch. It comprised an organic spring mix salad, topped with rasberry and white balsamic (which sucked), topped with grated mozarella. Yum. The complimentor failed to notice my PIECE OF HAM.

This "Ham" is the epitome of what is wrong with what we accept as "food". It was a thinly sliced rectangle of pink, moist, glistening goo with patches of darker pink that look like they might have come from meat at some point. On the scale of Ham quality, this is as low as you can go. It is one step above spam, or its copiers. Its distinguishing feature is that the texture is smooth rather than grainy. This still does not disguise the fact that it was protospam.

This rectangle of "meat" was obviously molded in a tube, and is probably designed to adjust the pallet of the masses to Vat food. Very soon in the future, we will get products such as these that were grown in a Lab. Tissue Culture Gone Awry.

On that note take a look at www.spam.com. This website is awesome in its weirdness. Its scary that it sells.