Have an Impeachy Day

Without justice, we are not a nation that is ruled by law, and without accountability, there is no justice. The failed casino owner who trashed our democracy for the sake of his own bloated ego must face consequences for his actions -- not just on January 6, but throughout the crime spree of his entire privileged existence. 

If we are indeed a nation of law, we must first be a nation of facts. We must not let pride and politics obfuscate the truth. We must not tolerate corruption or permit the betrayal and abuse of our sacred public trust, for it is this trust that serves as the very core of our democratic system of government.

I like to believe that we as a nation are better than this. If you think so, too, then I encourage you to call your representatives in Congress to let them know. Here is a link to Senate contact info, and here is the page for the House of Representatives. Maybe with enough pressure, more of them will choose justice over politics for the good of the republic. 

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Please feel free to copy and paste the contents of this blog post or share a link to it on social media. 

And go to my music page to hear me explain all of this in metered, rhyming verses with musical accompaniment -- plus links to a bunch of other songs that I wrote. 

Meteor-Bites

I had some buttermilk that needed to be used, so I made some makeshift donut holes. I actually wrote down what I did this time:

2 1/2 cups flour

1 1/3 cups buttermilk (give or take)

4 tsp baking powder

1 Tbsp corn starch

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp pumpkin pie spice

4 tsp fake vanilla extract (1/2 that if using real vanilla)

4 Tbsp melted butter

2 Tbsp melted lard

Mix the dry ingredients, then gently mix in the wet ingredients by hand until it's a clumpy, sticky mess. I used a spring-loaded scooper, tablespoon size (I think, although it might be slightly bigger), to scoop up the clumps of mush and drop them in clean, hot cooking oil. Since I did not have enough oil in the pan to fully submerge them, after a couple of minutes, I turned them over with a holed spoon (but a deep fryer would probably work just as well here). 

Once they were brown on all sides, I drained them on some paper towel, then rolled them in sugar. After that, I put them all on a parchment paper-lined cookie sheet, which I placed in the oven for about twelve minutes at 375°F. They cooked rather quickly in the oil, so I just wanted to make sure that they were heated all the way through. This last step may or may not have actually been necessary. 

They were somewhat misshapen, hence the name, but they were good: crispy on the outside, soft on the inside, and they tasted and smelled a lot like churros. Then again, it's fried dough rolled in sugar. It's pretty hard to go wrong. 

  

Good Job, Spotify

I just went to find my music on Spotify, where I also found a podcast interview that I did a couple of years ago about my dissertation/book Film Comedy and the American Dream. I did not expect to find those two things together. 

Check out the interview if you would like to hear me speaking to a distinguished colleague about mining comedy films for research material.  

How to Properly Cook a Pork Roast

The taste to effort ratio is way up on this one. It takes ten minutes, then six hours in a slow-cooker. You do it like this:

Chop up two onions and a good-sized chunk of ginger. Line the bottom of a slow-cooker with it, along with some red pepper flakes. 

Take a pork roast, pat it with kosher salt, black pepper and a little bit of brown sugar. Heat up a cast iron pan with some olive oil until it begins to smoke. Gently place the pork roast in the pan so that it doesn't splatter, then leave it alone. After a couple of minutes (or sooner, if you smell something burning), turn it to a different side with some metal tongs. Repeat this process until all sides are caramelized, keeping in mind that now that the pan's hot, the other sides won't take as long. With the brown sugar on there, you have to be careful not to burn it. The more you use, the easier it's going to burn. 

Once your kitchen smells like a restaurant that you would want to eat in, you can place the beautifully browned roast on top of the bed of onions and ginger. 

Open a can of crushed pineapple and unceremoniously dump it on top of the pork roast. Add a few splashes of soy sauce. Put the lid on the slow-cooker. Walk away. Do some writing. 

Cook this thing on high for about six hours, turning it over about halfway through. After that, you can switch the slow-cooker to the warm setting until whatever else you're making is ready. Transfer it to a bowl with a little bit of the onions and pineapple that it cooked in, then let it rest for about ten minutes or so with a piece of aluminum foil loosely placed on top of the bowl. Then I tear it up by sticking those same tongs in it and gently twisting. If I did everything right, it should fall apart without being mushy.

In our house, one three-pound roast is good for about four meals. I might make sandwiches out of it, as I did this evening, but it also makes good teriyaki tacos with some carrots, red cabbage and fried flour tortillas, among other uses. I usually freeze some and put it in with other stuff whenever I don't feel like spending a lot of time in the kitchen.

This is a good way to eat pork, even if you don't dig no swine.

  

The Best Damn Burgers

Here is how it is done: 

The patties are composed of ground beef, salt, pepper, garlic powder and Worchestershire sauce. Fresh meat from a butcher shop is ideal. With grocery store meat, I might add a little bit of MSG (i.e. flavor enhancer/umami), but that's just me. I tend to think that monosodium glutamate has gotten a bad rap over the years, but this ingredient is entirely optional.

Prepare a 9" x 9" baking pan (for four burgers) by lining it with aluminum foil, then cover the bottom of the pan with sliced onions and minced garlic -- plus I like to throw a whole jalapeno in there to be sliced up later. Preheat the oven to 375°F.

Heat a cast iron pan until it's visibly hot. Add a couple tablespoons or so of butter. After it melts, put the burger patties in. Keep the pan hot. Cook the burgers until they are nicely caramelized in the butter. I like to bring them as close to burnt as possible without going over, kind of like The Price is Right.

Once nicely charred, put the burgers in the prepared baking pan. I then pour all of the melted butter/pan juice over the burgers. This is how you make them juicy, charred and without any pink. They're also not greasy, because while the onions and jalapeno are cooked in all that fat, which can then be strained, the burgers aren't. Personally, I can't eat a hamburger that's not cooked all the way through, but in my experience, more often than not, a well-done burger is also dry. This solves that dilemma as well. I also added some chopped up fresh horseradish and put that on top of the burgers, and then I covered the pan tightly with aluminum foil. It cooked in the oven for about a half an hour. 

I often cook bacon on a separate pan alongside it, since the oven's already on anyway, and because I'm from the Midwest. If I put the bacon in five minutes or so after the burgers, then they're usually done at about the same time. 

This evening, I made these hamburgers and served them on some homemade wheat rolls. I challenge you to try this, and then see if you can make a better burger than that. These are so good that I don't even put cheese on them -- and like I said, I'm from the Midwest. 

I might also recommend a bruschetta composed of shredded carrots, chopped tomatoes, chopped mild green chilis, garlic, basil and green olives to top it off. Sometimes I cook a whole tomato in there with the burgers, too. It's messy, but it tastes a lot better than ketchup.