Month: July 2024

  • Nabemono – My New Food Fixation

    We are in the middle of Summer, and I am already thinking about Fall. Anticipating might be a better word. Fall is my favorite time of year, and I have the flannel and sweaters to prove it. There is the apple picking, leaves changing, Halloween and Thanksgiving. Autumn also means a switch to our menu at home, as we start eating heartier things due to the colder weather; soups, stews, and baked goods. While searching for new recipes for Fall, I came across nabemono, or Japanese hotpot cooking, which I have become fixated with.

    Nabemono is simple in concept, and complex in flavor and execution. It just means one pot meals, with a protean, vegetables, broth, noodles, and a dipping sauce. The pot is placed on the table, in some cases while on a heating plate, and people take what they want out of the pot and eat communally, or family style.

    I came across nabemono when I was looking up fast family meals from all over the world. I mean, America can’t be the only place where feeding a family quickly and cheaply is a major concern, and I was correct – seems to be a concern all over. If one doesn’t have a traditional nabe pot, a Dutch oven can be used as a substitute. And I have a Dutch oven! Also, nabemono has several different varieties – like shabu-shabu, chankonabe, and sukiyaki – as well as regional variations, which means that there are tons of different recipes out there to experiment with.

    I have been doing my research, and counting down the minutes until it is Autumn. I could give it a shot now, but it is like 90 degrees in NYC, and with 75% humidity so the thought of having a soup on a day like that doesn’t sound like the best idea. I need it to be like 65 outside, which is like late September. That’s a bit of a wait, but I can be patient.

    I’ll just keep searching for YouTube videos… like this…

  • We’re All Gun’na Die, Still (Election 2024)

    This has been a dramatic past week for politics. Really, it’s been a crazy three weeks.

    Up until Sunday, I couldn’t shake the feeling that we’re all gun’na die. I had resigned myself to the fact that Biden wouldn’t drop out, and that there was no way Trump would lose. After, you know, everything that has happened… Hence the feeling that we’re all gun’na die.

    Yes, I am a tad on the overly dramatic side of things, but I remember that feeling when Trump was declared the winner in 2016, how everything took on a feeling of dread. I also remember feeling that way non-stop for four years. Looking at the 2024 election, I started having flashbacks of all of those feelings.

    When Biden dropped out, which is what I was for but like in January of this year, I did have a moment of relief, that things just might get better. That there was a chance, dare I say hope, in this world again.

    But I have been around long enough to know that when the Democrats get the ball and all they have to do is score a layup, that’s when they try to kick a field goal… and miss…

    So, I am waiting for the other shoe to drop.

    Yet, I also know that Biden dropping out wasn’t for me. I was voting against Trump no matter what; this move changed nothing for me. The question will be if the Biden/Harris switch will get 10,000 people in each of nine swing starts to change their minds?

  • ODDS and ENDS: Vacation, Euro Final, and The End of the World

    (And I knew there was no turning back…)

    I had been out of town for the past week and a half. You could call it a vacation, in the sense that I left the place where I lived and went someplace new. I was Texas, but it was a new town in Texas that I had never been to before. It was Sanger, TX which is small town country Texas. It had been over twenty years since I had been in a region of Texas that was so far removed from everything else in the world. Though that far out in the country is not a place I would like to live (I am a City kid, after all) having grown up in Texas, there is something comforting and reassuring about being in that world of Texas. Not that I even spent a huge amount of time in the country, but if you dive an hour in any direction from the DFW area, you hit flat land, dusty winds, and a feeling that the world goes on forever. I enjoyed my time in Sanger. Yes it was small, but it was small town friendly, and a good place to have a wedding. (I was there for a wedding, if I didn’t say that yet.) It was also fun to show my daughter, who is a real City Kid, what the country is really like.

    And as I was in Texas for a wedding, I wasn’t able to finish my Euro Cup observations. Well, though I was rooting for England, I never really thought they were going to win. Spain just looked dominating, and they seemed destined to win it all. Now, I will say that England put up a hell of a fight (at least that’s what the highlights I saw showed) and it was entertaining, but England will always be the bridesmaid of international football. England had better players, but Spain was the better team. I have a very odd feeling that this was Harry Kane’s last international tournament. With Southgate resigning, which was expected win or lose, I don’t see Kane wanting to stick around. Not that Harry wouldn’t make the squad, but something strikes me that Kane is ready to pass the torch, so to speak. Botton line, I thought the Euro Cup 2024 was exciting and fun and well worth paying the cable fees so I could watch all the matches.

    I don’t like being this guy, but lately, it does feel like the world is coming to an end. Hopefully, it will pass after November, 5th.

  • Island in the Sun

    I should be back tomorrow… In the meantime…

  • Holiday Road