Super Bowl Menu: Pork Stew & Industrial Machinery

My wife and I had a weird weekend. That’s part of the reason this is getting posted so late. But the weekend was punctuated by a very strange Super Bowl Sunday. Basically, a work crew arrived unannounced and started digging up my front yard. And what a game?! That was an awesome Super Bowl. I don’t care who you were rooting for. Here’s how the whole day went down, beginning with the meal: Jalapeno Pork Stew.

I tried this recipe for the very first time just a few weeks back. This time I used less pork and a lot more onions. I started with just over four pounds of pork shoulder (I used just over five pounds last time out), then cut that into two-inch cubes while trimming away any fat. With that much meat this process took a while. Season the pork with two teaspoons of cumin and mix well so the cubes have an even spread of seasoning, or at least as evenly spread as possible.

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees. Heat two tablespoons of vegetable oil is a heavy pot or dutch oven. Then brown the meat in batches, removing to a plate when finished.

Now about this time I noticed a couple guys in my front yard. Turns out they found a gas leak under our front yard. I’ll tell you that I’ve called the gas company before because I smelled gas and they never found anything. Glad someone called them again because there clearly was a problem. Anyway, these guys got to work trying to find the leak.

Turns out the main city gas line had a few very small holes in it. They must pack some serious pressure into that line because I stood near the hole and could feel a strong wind of natural gas rushing out. It was like standing in front of a big fan and that pipe is still a good four feet under the surface. The whole area really reeked of gas too. They patched up the holes but may end up replacing the line for the whole block. So I’ve got a big hole in my front yard for a while. These guys started a couple hours before kickoff and worked well into the darkness of the second quarter. Thanks to these two dudes who sacrificed their Super Bowl Sunday to keep my house from blowing up.

Meanwhile I finished browning the pork.

Once removed, into the pan I added two more tablespoons of vegetable oil and three tablespoons of flour. Mix that around while it cooks for a minute.

Then add one 14.5 oz. can of diced tomatoes, drained, four cups of water, one cup of orange juice, two sliced jalapeno peppers and twelve whole cloves of garlic.

The original recipe this is based on calls for zero onions. Last time I added one. This time I’m adding three.

Bring this to a boil while stirring up any browned bits stuck to the pot. This will kick in a lot of flavor.

Once boiling, put the pork back into the pot and return it all to a boil once again.

Cover and place in your 325-degree oven for three hours. Now it’s time to pickle your onions. Combine 1/2 cup of water, 1/4 cup of red wine vinegar, a half-teaspoon of salt and one sliced red onion in a bowl. Mix well. Then refrigerate for anywhere between 30 minutes and 3 1/2 hours.

Here’s why my stew look like after three hours in the oven. Look how awesome it came out with all those cooked down onions.

Now add one pound of frozen, cut okra.

Mix that together well, cover and then return to the oven for another 30 minutes. Somewhere in this window is a great time to prepare your grits to serve with the stew. Here’s how the stew looks after cooking.

I serve the stew over the grits.

Then sprinkle some pickled red onions over the top to finish it all off. This really kicked some serious ass. I really like having a lot of the cooked-down onion bits throughout this. This was a strong meal that went perfectly with a strong finale to football. How am I going to live without football? Someone, please tell me.

Another, more entertaining recap of LOST

Here’s a spoof of two guys having to explain LOST to their girlfriends in five minutes:

LOST returns: An awesome, quick recap

It’s finally here. The last season of LOST begins this week. Even for the most hardcore fans, it can be hard keeping the sprawling storyline straight. It’s also been a while since it was last on air so if you want a quick refresher, here is this awesome and easy way to get back up to speed.

Farewell to the ultimate hermit: J.D. Salinger

As someone devoted to making the most of life at home, I was sad to read about the passing of author J.D. Salinger. He was a man who wrote one of the most influential book for many generations, yet shunned any attention for it or any attempts to clarify the meaning of his words. The Catcher in the Rye had a profound affect on me. It made me want to find the true meaning of myself and the life I was destined to live. I know I was not alone in that feeling. That’s a very powerful mark to leave on the world.

Salinger was a man who chose his own path, a path that kept him mostly at home. Here’s to Mr. Salinger and the way he went about his business. He shared very remarkable works of art with the world and clearly felt he owed the world little else. About that, he couldn’t be more right.

Hermit Cinema: The Player

Beginning with its eight-minute, opening shot, Robert Altman’s 1992 movie – set among executives’ offices in, of all things, the movie business – is an intelligently barbed satire that spares no one. I saw this movie when it first came out in the theater and was very impressed. Today, I think this movie stands out for its continuing relevance and insight. Like most Altman films, the dialogue and performances are sharp yet natural – the result, no doubt, of Altman’s famed laissez-faire approach to handling actors and scripts.

Here we follow the tale of Griffin Mill (Tim Robbins). Griffin’s a hunted man. As a studio executive charged with handling writers, he sees villains everywhere he looks. There’s Larry Levy (Peter Gallagher), an executive at rival studio Fox, rumored to be taking his place. There’s a writer sending him anonymous, ominous and threatening postcards. There’s Detective Avery (Whoopi Goldberg), hounding Griffin as a suspect for murder. Of course, none of that appears to ruffle his feathers or stop him from ordering a different brand of designer bottled water at every given opportunity.

This ensemble piece comes loaded with cameos and a big cast of characters. Just a few of the cameos include Buck Henry, Malcolm McDowell, Andie McDowell, Bruce Willis, Jeff Goldblum, Harry Belafonte, Bruce Willis, Julia Roberts and Jack Lemmon – all of which lend an authentic feel to this piece.

Rounding out the formidable cast we have David Kahane (a young, angry and barely recognizable Vincent D’Onofrio), the writer Griffin suspects of sending the postcards. June (Greta Scacchi) is Kahane’s girlfriend who replaces a story editor at the studio  as the object of Griffin’s affection. Walter (Fred Ward) is in charge of studio security. You even get Jeremy Piven as a young studio executive which is great foreshadowing for his current role as Ari Gold on Entourage. Dick Mellon (Sydney Pollack) is Griffin’s lawyer. Well, not that kind of lawyer, he’s more like a Hollywood power broker who serves as Griffin’s career counselor. Here’s a great exchange between the two.

Griffin: Larry Levy. Everywhere I look, he’s in my face.

Dick: Larry Levy’s a comer. That’s what comers do, they get in your face. You’re a comer. You can handle it. Stop worrying about it.

Griffin: So the rumors are true?

Dick: Rumors are always true. You know that.

Griffin: Well, I’m always the last to hear about them.

Dick: You’re the last one to believe. I told you that before.

Good stuff, no? This is a Hollywood fable about blind ambition, backstabbing and the repetitive nature of the show business machine. Right from the start we see people pitching movie ideas, ideas for which Bruce Willis and Julia Roberts just happen to be perfectly suited for the starring roles.

The most notable part of this movie is Tim Robbins. This is a real breakout role. Sure, he was great as Nuke Laloush in Bull Durham prior to this film. But following that, this portrayal of a ruthless, conniving, power-hungry studio exec completely defies his physical appearance which makes it all that much more engaging.

Do yourself a favor. Put aside any smirks or condescension you may have regarding the characters’ wardrobes and other dated visual cues. If you give this movie a chance, it’ll stay with you.

I give this an A-minus.

NFL Conference Championship Menu: Time to hit the bar

A short, quick entry here. I didn’t cook any grub for one of the greatest football days of the year because my friend Moe and I hit a bar to watch the first game instead. This is a big deal for Moe since he’s got a kid and any time he can make a jailbreak he’s using up precious marriage currency – not a decision to be taken lightly.

We’re so old and lame we had a lot of back and forth deciding where to go. We ended up at the nearest sports bar/wing place. We watched the Jets put up one hell of a fight while downing a huge plate of nachos loaded with cheese, token veggies and chili. Then we watched Peyton Manning put on a surgical performance to put the Jets away while gnawing on some awesome wings. Then I went home and planted myself on the couch for the Saints victory.

Now let the Super Bowl hype begin. Sad to see the season end, but it always does…

A great take on Mark McGwire and steroids

I’m a baseball fan. I’m not hard core or crazed. I don’t have a fantasy or rotisserie league (though I love saying the term ‘rotisserie league’). I can’t recite endless stats on demand. But I do follow my teams (the NY Yankees and my adopted team, the Atlanta Braves) and catch as many games as I can on TV.

I’m lucky in that my most impressionable years as a fan took place in the 70’s and early 80’s, during my childhood and early teens. In other words, baseball’s biggest impact on me occurred prior to what is now and will forever be called the Steroid Era.

Like many fans I enjoyed baseball’s resurgence in the post-strike years as well as McGwire’s & Sosa’s chase of the home run record. Their feats didn’t seem natural but like many people, I was able to put that aside and marvel at the sheer athletic prowess of their efforts. In the back of my mind, things seemed fishy. After all, there were plenty of players who never hit more than 25 – 30 homers a year suddenly flirting with 50. Many suddenly looked like they belonged on Muscle Beach more than in a baseball uniform, overnight.

I’m as disappointed as anyone in how the whole thing turned out, especially McGwire’s attempt to apologize but refute any real culpability. But I’d have a hard time articulating anything in a way that contributes anything new to the discussion.

Doug Glanville is a former Major League player who enjoyed a fine career and retired just a few years ago. He is now an occasional contributor to the NY Times and has written several great pieces. Recently one appeared about his take on playing with and against players who were clearly juiced. It’s a great piece and one well worth reading. (Check out his other entries too for a very intelligent perspective from a former player.)

Check it out here.

Hermit Cinema: Inglourious Basterds

The problem with Quentin Tarantino movies, and it’s a nice problem to have mind you, is that people view them more as a cultural event than a movie. So let’s take a step back for a moment and take an overall look at Tarantino’s catalog for a moment.

His feature-length directing career seems to divide itself into two phases. There’s what I’ll call his Elmore Leonard Phase: Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown. These all take place in a criminal underworld that the straitlaced world suspects exists, profiling happenings and relationships with their own rules, rituals and language.

Then, for a lack of a better term, there is what I’ll call his Modern Hipster Western Phase: Kill Bill Vol. 1, Kill Bill Vol. 2 and now Inglourious Basterds. These are cultural reference-laden movies steeped in undeniable cool that utilize plot elements most often found in traditional Westerns.

His first phase was responsible for his breakthrough and a lot of folks wish he’d never grow beyond it. The non-linear storytelling coupled with perhaps some of the best dialogue ever written made for some unforgettable scenes. The movies were like nothing anyone had ever seen before. Fact is he, more than any other director, is directly responsible for the maturation and mainstreaming of the ‘independent’ movie movement. These were great films. Though if he kept making them, I think he’d become a respected but ultimately irrelevant figure.

The second phase is in my opinion more mature and more challenging as he’s confined within a more conventional storytelling format. This is a good development for Tarantino as it limits his self-indulgent tendencies. But enough of my wannabe-film-professor analysis and let’s get to the film itself.

The movie opens with an extended, gripping scene that introduces us to the movie’s villan: Nazi SS Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz). From that point on, he chews up every scene he’s in; more so than anyone else in the film. That’s really saying something because American Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) and his Tennessee twang do a lot of chewing as well.

Landa is an evil man, prowling France looking for Jews to exterminate. Raine and his gang of Jewish-American soldiers (the Basterds) prowl the countryside dressed as civilians, looking for Nazi’s to exterminate. Actually exterminate is an understatement. Their mission is to exterminate and dismember with a level of extreme prejudice that spreads fear within the Nazi ranks.

Meanwhile, there’s the covertly Jewish woman (Mélanie Laurent) operating a Parisian movie theater who gets co-opted into premiering a propaganda film for Nazi VIPs including ol’ Adolph himself. Double agent and German movie star Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger) is tasked with getting Allied operatives into the premiere to wreak havoc on Adolph & Company.

This movie has two of the best scenes in recent memory: the aforementioned opening and a tense scene that takes place in a basement tavern. Both are remarkable for their length. The scenes go on and on but are handled so deftly you’re drawn to the edge of your seat and kept there, unsure what could possibly happen next. They are the true mark of a master. I also like the way he approaches the historical setting. That is, he ignores history altogether. That’s a fresh approach, one that seems so obvious yet has been untried until now.

The weak point of the movie for me is the ending. It gets a bit cartoonish, but not in an unforgivable way. It’s too bad the whole movie doesn’t hold together or work as well as the two standout segments, but that’s understandable. It’s Tarantino. The dialogue is razor sharp. There isn’t a bad performance anywhere to be found. And you get his standard foot fetish close-up.

You’ll find flaws in this movie. But a movie this ambitious cannot be free of them. If you built a thousand-story skyscraper, it wouldn’t be a surprise to find a bathroom on the 837th floor where the air conditioning didn’t work so well. But good gravy man, just enjoy the view.

I give this DVD an A-minus.

Hermit Cinema: The Hurt Locker

This movie opens with a scene that is edge-of-your-seat  suspenseful for the viewer but is  just another day for the men down range in 2004 Iraq. From there, the movie hardly lets up. A movie that arrived in my mailbox along with a ton of high expectations and critical reviews, I’m glad to say Kathryn Bigelow’s film delivers.

The focus of the movie revolves around a three-man team of the Army’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) Unit. Sgt. Will James (Jeremy Renner) is the new team leader. He’s the one who dons the protective suit and disarms complicated bombs while Sgt. JT Sanborn (the underrated and underused Anthony Mackie) and Specialist Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty) provide cover and backup. Also appearing are Guy Pearce, David Morse and Ralph Fiennes who make what amount to be cameo appearances but are very well done. Evangeline Lilly (of LOST fame) appears but isn’t given much room to maneuver.

As a team leader, James is a wildcard. In this role, Renner’s performance is a revelation. Fueled by adrenaline and machismo, James’ approach seems to revolve around approaching each bomb as a personal insult. This tunnel-vision is what allows him to disarm bomb after bomb. To the tightly-controlled Sanborn this approach comes across as reckless. Sanborn resents the unnecessary risk.

Unlike many films, here there are no moral judgments. It’s a boots-on-the-ground view of the soldiers’ lives, not a take on foreign policy implications. The physical, mental and psychic cost of war reveals itself in non-cliché ways, which was refreshing for a war film. All the men live under the stress of constant threat with no ability to differentiate citizen from enemy. Surprisingly, the toll is a price James seemingly cannot live without.

I like that this movie didn’t follow the usual template of most war movies; action into extended character exposition then alternating between the two, ultimately leading to the big battle finale. For the most part, this movie dives right into the action and rarely lets up. There are more personal forays but they are spare and I didn’t miss what wasn’t there. Most of what I needed or wanted to know about the characters reveals itself through their conduct under fire.

I give this movie a solid A. Bravo to Kathryn Bigelow and I’m looking forward to checking out whatever she does next. It’ll be hard to live up to this film. But what a great problem to have.

NFL Divisional Playoff Menu: Beef Brisket Returns!

One of our earliest kick-ass recipes makes a glorious return for the playoffs: Sweet & Sour Brisket. This recipe was given to me from a guy named Del from Texas which gives it instant street cred. That is hard core brisket country.

It’s not that hard to make. It just takes some time and patience. The recipe calls for a 3 to 3.5 lb brisket. I rarely can find one that large at my nearby supermarket. The one I got was about 2.6 lbs. and that’s where it gets tricky. For the first time I trimmed off nearly the entire fat cap with a paring knife.

Couple that with my tendency to overcook pieces smaller than the recipe calls for and I ended up with a final product that was a touch drier than I would have liked. But it was still so good I nearly licked my plate clean so perhaps I’m over-analyzing.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Heat some vegetable oil is a large dutch oven. Take your now-trimmed brisket and season both sides with plenty of ground pepper and three minced garlic cloves.

Brown the brisket on both sides, about three minutes each.

Remove brisket to a plate and add two sliced onions. Stir them around every once in a while until they brown.

You don’t have to be precise because the onions nearly disappear into the sauce, anyway. Now add 1/2 cup of red wine and 1/2 cup of beef broth. Cook for one minute and stir anything stuck to the bottom of the pot into the liquid.

Now add the rest of the ingredients for the sauce: 1 cup (bottle) of chili sauce, 1/2 cup of brown sugar, 1/2 cup of cider vinegar and a bay leaf. Stir that all around to combine.

Return the brisket to the pot and then cover it with the sauce. Then seal the top tightly with foil or with the cover.

Place into the oven. The recipe calls for 2 – 3 hours for a 3 – 3.5 lb brisket. Mine was 2.6 before I removed the fat. I let mine go for about 2.5 hours and with most of the fat removed, as I mentioned earlier, it wasn’t as juicy as I normally like. I’m going to have to experiment and get this process down cold. It was still good eatin’ though.