I’m a bit late to updating the list this year. There aren’t too many new entries, but there are a few changes.

Politics

5-4 Pod – Official Description:5-4 is a podcast about how much the Supreme Court sucks. It’s a progressive and occasionally profane take on the ideological battles at the heart of the Court’s most important landmark cases; an irreverent tour of all the ways in which the law is shaped by politics. Presented by Slow Burn co-creator Leon Neyfakh, 5-4 is a production of Prologue Projects. Eric’s Commentary: If you really want to see how crazy it is that 9 men and women who server for life have such control over American life, you can be silly like me and listen to this show. I often find the topics and conclusions depressing (whether it’s the current Supreme Court or one from the past) The hosts are entertaining, though. They’re all practicing or former lawyers.

Yeah, I’m a bit late to this, but I just finished up with my October photos.

• Chicken and cauliflower tikka masala
• Cuban Picadillo
• Ground pork tacos
• Teriyaki Chicken Thighs
• Teriyaki Chicken Thighs
• lemon-dill biscuits
• Za’atar chicken cutlets
• Korean Pork and Kim Chi Stew
• brussels sprouts and garlic chips

Last time I was in Florida my mom took me to a specialty BBQ store, Just Grillin, off of Dale Mabry in Carrollwood. I didn’t know such places existed. I thought everyone just bought their grills at a hardware store, Amazon, or direct from the company. It was a pretty great to be able to see and touch Yoders, Weber Summits, and other high-end BBQs. They also came by with some chicken they’d cooked in the back using a variety of rubs they sell. Oh yeah, the entire wall behind the register was full to the brim with rubs and sauces - most (if not all) of them local or competition group rubs. Any rub you wanted to try would be poured into a tasting cup. Sure, it’s not the same as having the rub on some food, but it’s certainly better than the blind buying we have to do with supermarket rubs. As a gift, mom said she’d get me any rub I wanted to try, so I picked up Thunderbird Chicken Scratch. Then a bunch of travel meant I had to keep waiting impatiently until I could finally try it. Last night I finally got my chance.

Continuing my summer of learning to cook new dishes, I decided to tackle steakhouse burgers. I’d already mastered diner burgers, so I wanted to work on these. I didn’t follow Meathead’s directions 100% in that I didn’t create ground beef out of a nice cut of meat. But I did follow his recipe for using 2 zone cooking to make good-tasting, thick burgers.

Now, it’s possible that it’s because I crowded my burgers (18" kettle, not much of a choice), but it took WAY too long to come up to temp. After 20 minutes it was not anywhere near 155. Since it was getting late, I just moved them to the sear side to speed up the cooking.

Part of the fun of being into BBQ has been trying new things. As I’ve mentioned before, when I was growing up “BBQ” was what we called grilling and it MOSTLY consisted of burgers and hot dogs. Very occasionally it would be something else. Lots of lighter fluid and mediocre results. But now I know about low and slow and smoking and 2-zone grilling. And once I mastered ribs, chicken, and brisket it was time to experiment. So I tried Meathead’s recipe for Alabama Birds with White Sauce.

In the past few years I’ve been moving away from seeing pizza as junk food towards seeing it as another food that is sometimes made with care, skill, and love and sometimes make in a hurry for a buck. I can’t remember the exact timeline and can’t be bothered to search for photo evidence, but the two restaurants that changed my mind on pizza were Two Amys in Maryland and Grimaldi’s in Brooklyn. Two very different styles of pizza, but Grimaldi’s cooked in a fire-based pizza oven and authentic Neopolitan at Two Amys. So now there was a new measurement against which to measure all pizzas: the wood-fired pizza.

Breaded steak was probably my favorite Cuban food growing up. More than pork shoulder sandwiches and other things my mother made. I often helped her prepare it at home, but never got a chance to cook it as a kid. I’ve tried it a few times since growing up, but it’s hard to get the right thickness. Butchers here don’t know what it is, so they have a hard time helping me. But this time I got through to a butcher at Wegmans - who let me in on the secret - using a mallet to squish the meat skinnier than it can be cut on a steak slicer. The only thing that sucks is that my example of thinness was some Korean meat so he thought I wanted it cut into little strips. Still, I finally was successful at making a very tasty breaded steak:

[caption id=“attachment_6722” align=“aligncenter” width=“500”] Cooking[/caption]

Back in May I came across an article on Boing Boing Titled " You Don’t Have a Moral Obligation to Cook":

I have found myself frustrated with Michael Pollan lately. In the course of promoting his new book about cooking, he’s taken to spouting some opinions that I’ll frankly call claptrap. He’s mocked women who felt trapped by the kitchen drudgery that they got stuck with simply because they owned a vagina. He’s implied that it’s easy (if you’re not lazy) for everyone to make every meal an ideologically sound slow-food meal. In general, he’s disparaged the very idea that some people don’t like to cook.