I was so flattered when, just the other night, the little green Jedi Master who stole my heart back in 1981 returned the favor by trying to steal into my pants. What a dream come true to bag a hero of such renown! Yeah, the age difference threw me for a second, but then I thought, “He could be one of those generous older men and if I play my cards right I can parley meaningless sex into a private pleasure asteroid of my own where I can build an exclusive (yet terribly cute) bed & breakfasts that caters to intergalactic movers and shakers who need some away time from the hassles of fighting an oppressive government and its instruments and agents of hegemony.” Ah, but his age was just the first drip in a cascade of worries that plague any potential hookup. Like most guys on Grindr, I worry about, you know, “satisfaction”. Sure, he’s hell against a Sith Lord, but can he use the force of his love to send me to this side of the galaxy and back? A Samson on the field, a Sleeping Beauty in the bedroom; it could happen. What about size? He’s like, 2’5″ or something, right? Then I remembered an expression in ASL:

And I decided to take the chance.

Fremdschämen

Press play. Don’t look away.

Did you manage to make it all the way through? How high had your shoulders crawled up the side of your head in a futile attempt to escape the horror? Were there tears? A sudden, jarring flashback to your high school piano recital when you stood up to bow and had an erection? Then, congratulations, you have just experienced “fremdschämen”, or “contact embarrassment”. Start committing this word to memory, because with all the mid-season replacement shows coming up, you’ll have a plethora of opportunities to whip it out and impress your friends with your fer’rin’ lenggage skills.

Also, Merlin return to SyFy this Friday.

[Image source]

Kummerspeck

How is it possible we have gone without this word in the English language for so long? Just last week I was wandering around the house eating old bits of cheese and floppy celery and frost-burnt waffles because I was in a funk. Who hasn’t had a bad day (or three) and turned to food to feel better?

Google Images: ruining diets since 2001

“Kummerspeck” (literally “grief bacon”, which is the coolest etymology next to disaster‘s) is the weight I have to work off that I gain during said funk while I still feel strongly about keeping my New Year’s resolutions. Thank you, Germany!

Tradition demands that pork and sauerkraut be had on New Year’s Day, and while not a fan of sauerkraut in its unadulterated form, I do love a good pork roast. Thanks to the helpful suggestions of some Facebook friends, I perforated the pig in thirty or so places and stuffed each well with a clove or two of garlic. The whole hog was then marinated overnight (I read that marinating up to three days is desirable, which I am truly curious about and will try the next time I don’t wait until the day before to make dinner) in chipotle and cider vinegar. Roasting started at 7:30 AM at 500° for thirty minutes and continued at 225° for 10 hours. The roast flaked apart when barley touched by a fork, and the crackling on top was crunchy crunchy.

Of course, I pulled out the pierogies I made earlier in the Fall for a side (Saint Joseph over a sawhorse, were they good!)…

…and sauerkraut simmered in beef broth for good luck and less gassiness.

I hope all your dinners this year will be delicious and plentiful, and may others be part of your bounty.

Justice League #4

Oh, sweet untouched Mary on assback, the testosterone! Still! Four issues in and just glancing at the cover gets me hard with visions of high school locker room posturing and towel snapping! I suppose there is something to be said about having reprehensible characters lead a story – it is what drove Married with Children to be so popular, to say nothing of 16 and Pregnant or It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia or Seinfeld. Or Glee, for that matter. But the characters should at least be intriguing, draw us in, and maybe pause for a moment to let us in on the adventure. But so far, this maiden arc of Justice League is the comic book equivalent of Rush Hour: lots of noise but not one inward glace or moment of calm, rational discussion.

Superman has become anti-establishment, but is he still a hero of the people? Morrison has Army General Lane coming to the realization that not only has he been manipulated into hating Superman by Lex Luthor, but also that superman is the only one who can save his daughter from being collected by Brainiac. Jump ahead to JL times and Superman still distrusts the government. It will be interesting to see how these stories are bridged.

Wonder Woman doesn’t know ice cream, but can tell when someone’s flesh has been fused to cybernetic armor.

Flash is the adult child of an alcoholic, and so far can sing one note.

Batman wants to be in charge. And while he’s always kept the Batman Family in line under his benevolent hegemony, I can’t see him wanting to wrangle strangers into working for him, especially when, as a Loner of the Night, he could just as easily walk away. Unless he’s just pissing up a rope to not lose face in front of the other males of the JL which is also not his style. He knows he’s better.

Aquaman is King of Atlantis and wants to be King of Total Strangers Whom He Just Met and also wears flashy jewelry. And still is just some guy who talks to fish. The trident is nice, though. Phallic. Like his glans-shaped belt buckle.

Green Lantern is still playing “What are Your Powers?” though we find out in an unguarded moment -of truth, misogyny, and paranoia- that his bravado is as blustery as March in Chicago. And, for me, GL is the new JL writ small. Geoff Johns has given us Ryan Reynolds’ version of GL, but without the self-confidence and understanding of what a hero is that Reynolds managed to tweak out of his character by the end of the movie. I’ve never found (classic) Hal Jordan’s GL to be all that interesting (outside of Darwyn Cooke’s The New Frontier) because he’s always been so noble and good. And boring. My knowledge is sketchy after that. I know he was Parallax for a while and then dead and then back again for Blackest Night. And as much as I liked BN, Hal’s story didn’t intrigue me as much as, for example, Mogo’s did. Needless to say, the prospect of a GL movie didn’t tantalize me at all. When I finally did see it (it was the nephew’s idea), I was surprised that the most important element of Hal’s being chosen as a Green Lantern -his innate courage- was dismissed in favor of him being a man-child womanizer. But then he evolved. And while it wasn’t perfect, I went along with it and found some enjoyment in that iteration.

And perhaps this evolution will come to the JL membership in future issues. This is, after all, a glimpse into the past when there was no JL and anti-hero sentiment was at an all-time high (which really makes one wonder what motivates Batman and Superman to don costumes and fight crime). Perhaps there will be time for character development later. Perhaps I’ll revisit around issue 12 when, no doubt, someone else will be writing this series.

Good help is so hard to find.

Grade: D

Justice League Dark #4

I really can’t believe Madame Xanadu was cancelled and an alternate John Constantine was created to get this title out on the market. Matt Wagner’s MX was an excellent tour-of-the-ages that connected the dots between a hero from a lost kingdom to the early Golden Age of superheroes, charming, creative and had an all too brief life. And while I’m not a die-hard Hellblazer reader, I know who Constantine is and the dew stories I’ve read were all top-notch. I just don’t see him as being part of a team for a long period of time, but that’s just me. But Justice League Dark… What perplexes me is that the title has all the elements I love in fiction writing – good characters (though I know very little about Shade, the Changing Man), magic (magic is always wonderful), underdogs trying to beat impossible odds (like The Mighty Ducks), groovy, psychedelic art with a rotoscope realism, a dense story that requires some thought to put it all together, but it all totals out to bad hash. I wish I knew why.

Grade: C+

Wonder Woman #4

I disagree with Azzarello and Chiang’s announcement that their run on Wonder Woman will be a horror story. There are no elements of horror that I recognize in the story beyond (stretching here) encounters with the supernatural, but I would call this “mythology” and not “horror”. Maybe I’m wrong. Feel free to say so. Which is not to say that I’m not enjoying the series because I am. It’s just not horror.

What I do read in the title is a pagan Wonder Woman. And there could be a fearful element in that. There is something terrifying about ancient religions (to be fair, there’s something terrifying about modern religions) and how far removed they are from the clean (read “sanitized”) places of worship people flock to these days. The last time I attended Mass, there was no awe in the pews. No reverence for Transubstantiation. No resigned dismay to ingesting the Body and Blood. No fear that God was present and maybe a little miffed about the horrible things done in Its name. Really, Church is for pussies, or at least people who would prefer to not think of the Infinite as something that would make them void their bowels when confronted by it. Pagans knew how to worship, and that was through fear-inspired servitude. Like the Amazons do. Azzarello and Chiang have stripped the marble and ruffle-y robes and Escher-esque architecture away from the Greek Gods and made them dirty, blood-covered brutes, which is horror of a sort, I suppose. It works. The Gods are to be feared. Ask Hippolyta. Oh, wait. You can’t.

While Diana is now a demi-goddess by heritage (and I have my own misgivings about what this does for Diana’s uniqueness since Zeus was the Johnny Appleseed of his day -except that instead of appleseeds he spread it was his godly sperm and instead of fertile land it was any woman within squirting distance), she doesn’t have a familial connection to the Gods, though she is obviously friends with Hermes. She could have been friends with Strife as well -Lord knows Strife was trying to get in Diana’s Good Books even after causing the deaths of who knows how many Amazons- but only ended up making another enemy. However, spending time with her new family brings Diana to the conclusion some people never learn: family is the people you go home to. Which brings us to the most frightful page of the issue.

Finally, while Chiang’s art is growing on me, his rendition of women in armor is still a visual stile. Diana in street clothes is lithe and powerful-looking almost like a dancer; Diana in costume is blocky and has Dot Marie Jones shoulders. She almost looks like Futura from “Metropolis”.

Even has the same fussy lines. Ah, well. A minor concern.

Grade: B+

Avengers: The Children’s Crusade #8

Yeah, yeah. Late again.

Yeah, yeah. Great writing.

Yeah, yeah. Fantastic art.

Now that all that is out of the way, let’s talk about absolution. A terribly Catholic notion, absolution is granted when a person is truly sorry for his or her sins and asks the Divine to wipe the slate clean and return one to a state of grace. It’s a step above the passive-aggressive bumper sticker theology of “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven,” because one has to be sorry for being an asshole and not just assume that belief in Jesus’ warm, loving forgiveness is enough.

Part of The Children’s Crusade is about the Scarlet Witch’s search for absolution, as an Avenger, as a mother, as a person. But not everyone is willing to give her that so easily; the X-Men and the Avengers are on the scene to … do … something (even Scott Summers isn’t sure (or is unwilling to explain himself) how Wanda should be punished for purging mutantkind from the human race), but they are all in agreement that punishment is required.

And then Wiccan -who has the greatest sense of family and love than any other character in the Marvel Universe outside of Jean Grey- rises to his mother’s defense (as she will not defend herself) and points out that The X-Men now keep company with Magneto and Emma Frost -murderers themselves- and that The Avengers themselves have ex-criminals in their ranks. It’s a beautiful scene because all the elements are there – the guilty whose conscience demands she atone for her sins, her accusers who are blind to their hypocrisy, and her defender who sees the world as a place where fairness and justice are attainable.

And then God -a Life Force imbued Victor von Doom- arrives to make everything OK.

Not really.

What he does, in fact, is destroy the Scarlet Witch’s need for absolution by saying that it was he who excised the X-factor from the human genome, not Wanda. And right out the window with the baby went the entire passion play that has been building from issue one. The Scarlet Witch is no longer a tragic figure who knows that her hamartia is due her, but merely a weak woman, used (in ways yet to be explained) by Doom (for reason yet to be explained). And the choice grates. Wanda was poised to be a great hero, and is now instead just as damaged and thoughtlessly reactionary as she was back in House of M.

And to distract readers from this terrible revelation, there are two almost-deaths.

Not my favorite chapter in this otherwise great (though needlessly protracted) mini-series.

Grade: C

Invincible #86

“[Humans]‘re assholes.” AAAH, Mr. Kirkman! What a talent for understatement you have! Let me correct that for you: “Everyone is an asshole.” Some people are just better at rationalizing it. (I’m looking at you, Allen and Roger.)

Grade: B

Raptor Jesus sends you his toothy blessings.

[via Scott McGrath]

[Image source]

It’s a few days before Christmas, and I’m hoping that by making a hot, hearty soup that the winds will suddenly blow from the North and bring us cold and snow. I can hope.

A holiday tradition that I have never partaken in until Sprout decided that this is the way we were going to go this year is the gingerbread man. As such, I was faced with sorting through literally thousands of recipes that I had no way to verify or put together in my head. Not being a baker, I can’t look at a cookie recipe and say, “Yes, I know what this will do and it will taste wonderful!” The function and ratios of baking powder and baking soda still confuse the hell out of me. To circumvent possible disaster, I went with a Paula Deen recipe. According to Food Network Humor, she’s a soulless homunculous, a deep-fried fiend in brown butter sauce, but she seems to know her way around sugar and fat, so why not?

Not bad, overall. I think they need more zip, though. Maybe more ginger?

The icing, while delicious, was too difficult to squeeze out of a pastry bag. and by “difficult”, I mean “copiously dribbled like a longshoreman after a week of leave.” It did dry solid and shiny, though, which makes the cookies look great, but I need a different recipe by next year. Any advice?

[Image source]

There was an excellent restaurant in Erie ages ago where my family used to go at least twice a month for pub grub and bonding time: The Station Restaurant featuring Oscar’s Pub. The Station still exists, but as a dinner theatre (badly in need of new roofing and exterior paint), as does Oscar’s Pub, still managed/owned by the same guy from the 80′s (and they say diversification is good for business). However, neither of the current iterations offer the best item that graced the original Oscar’s menu: sauerkraut balls. I’ve asked around and no one outside of this area of the country has heard of them, let alone tried one. Trust me, though; they are delicious! They are, in essence, Reuben sandwiches that have been balled and deep fried. Served with a side of cocktail sauce, I could eat a few dozen on my own. And since I’m on a regional foods kick, making sauerkraut balls for the holidays seems like it would solve a lot of problems, the biggest one being not having sauerkraut balls.

I also have to mention a restaurant just down the road that has the best Reubens in Erie (voted, vetted, and personally experienced): McGarrey’s. They add a slice of cream cheese while grilling their sandwiches, so the inside has this gushy creaminess that is just spectacular. Of course, my sauerkraut balls would have to have cream cheese in them as well. When is dairy ever not an option?

I looked around the net, and there were so many variations on the recipe -I even found one in my Mom’s ancient Betty Crocker cookbook (called “Reuben Balls”)- that I decided to cannibalize from a few and see what happened. The texture of the balls that I remember was akin to a hush puppy, but not mealy as they can sometimes be, so I wanted to keep any breading/filler to a minimum. Here’s what I came up with:

32 oz. sauerkraut
beef stock
1 lb. corned beef
8 oz. cream cheese
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
salt and pepper
garlic powder
onion powder
2 eggs
additional flour, eggs, and breadcrumbs for breading

In order to infuse the balls with more beef flavor (yeah, yeah; I can see how that might read in a way that would make someone with a puerile mind think of an ejaculating penis), I simmered the sauerkraut in the beef stock for two hours, then drained away as much juice as I could with a colander and paper towels. The kraut shouldn’t be bone dry; a little moisture is fine. It just shouldn’t be swimming in jus. Cool until easy to handle with your hands.

Next, I chopped the corned beef and sauerkraut to a fine consistency. Since sauerkraut balls are an appetizer, the meat and veg inside shouldn’t be chunky. In other words: no big pieces!

I should probably stop here and say that this is not baking. Baking requires painstaking measurements and anal-retentive consistency to result in a final, edible product. Cooking is more fast and loose, but that being said, I still want my final product to have a certain texture and taste. Right now, I’m guessing about how the final product will turn out. Yeah, it’ll taste good (how could it not?), but is it the perfect replica of the snack I remember? We’ll see. Part of what I want to do with the blog (part of the blog; I’m supposed to be writing about writing) is to document what I do in the kitchen so I can learn from my mistakes and do better the next time.

The corned beef, sauerkraut and cream cheese were then put in a pot to allow the cheese to melt. The breadcrumbs and seasonings came next and the whole concoction was cooked for no more than 15 minutes (or long enough to develop a thickish consistency to the concoction plus a few minutes more to let all the tastes marry). The pot was removed from the heat and allowed to cool. When at room temperature, I added the eggs, then moved the pot to the refrigerator to set up.

I let the batter rest for about an hour until it was firm enough to shape into balls. Freezing may be another option if one is in a hurry.

The balls were then breaded (that is, floured, egged, then rolled in breadcrumbs), which I think is just fun.

Then fried.

Drained.

And enjoyed.

The overall product was good, but the texture was more like a croquette than a hush puppy. The center was very creamy, much moreso than I wanted it to be. Next time, I think an additional 1/2 cup of flour and more breadcrumbs may not go wrong. And, darn it, there was probably too much cream cheese. I also think the corned beef and sauerkraut should be sent through my food processor next time (sadly, my bowl and broken and the replacement didn’t allow the lid to sit in place, damn Hamilton Beach). Again, it was a croquette-y texture instead of a more homogeneous hush puppy. The taste, however, was well-layered. The normally pungent sauerkraut was nicely softened with the beef broth and contrasted well with the salty corned beef. Next time they’ll be better!

Anything anyone would like to add?

This is from my brother, who enjoys making up words that can be used in a dissertation. Damn his organized mind!

Para-operational Irony – From para [par-, prefix meaning "alongside, beyond, altered, contrary"], operation ["action, performance, work" from O.Fr. operacion, from L. operationem "a working, operation"; cf. Gk. dramatos "play, action, deed"]

The device of withholding from the spectator or audience items of information such that the spectator or audience are placed on a par with characters who are confused, bewildered, hoodwinked or perceptually hobbled.

Season 5 of House, M.D. sees the title character suffering from complex hallucinations, decreasing mental facility and increasing psychosomatic pain. The character struggles to diagnose himself and make sense of his disorders to no avail. The viewing audience is forced to make sense of directorial choices and cinematographic style–both radically different from previous seasons–amid ambiguous plot lines which leave the audience with a sense of discontinuity similar to that experienced by the series’ main character.

[Image Source]

Adam4adam is a gay dating website much like some prostitute you just met on lower Peach Street is your girlfriend. Not to be crass, but beating around the bush (so to speak) does no one any good. It is similar to Grindr, which I’ve written about, but without all that handy portability. Most guys there prefer not to hit up by strangers with tired lines like “‘Sup?” or “UR hawt!” or “Pardon me, good sirrah. Might I steal a moment of your time to extend an invitation to my bedroom where I shall throw your legs up behind your ears and ravage your chocolate pucker till the morning light doth glow dimly on the horizon?”. No, no, it’s all about being real, or at least having a memorable opening line.

Which bring us to thkdk4u:

from his description, he possesses the one outstanding quality I look for in a guy: online pictures of his unit, which his ad informs me is not only formidable, but also wielded masterfully. I approached him in a way that I felt was humorous and slightly self-deprecating, having learned from io9 is a way to get people to like you. However, it looks like io9 may have been off the mark this time (click for the legible version):

Sadly (for both of us, I think), I probably won’t hear back from him. Unless I do. Come back for updates!

I didn’t start as a writer; I started as an English teacher, teaching Deaf kids how to read and write a language they had never heard and whose grammar drives native users to herpes outbreaks. Writing came because… well, first because I had been writing on and off for several years, and second because I had to – no sense in buying into the “those who can’t” stereotype.

The first question is always “What to write about?”.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer kept me from being very sad during grad school when I discovered the show after being dumped by a guy who had a really, really odd penis. His penis has nothing to do with my writing, but I throw it out there in case he reads my blog. He knows who he is. Ayway, what would an aspiring writer not like about tackling a Buffy episode? That was how I came up with What Are Friends For?. it’s old and dusty and would probably be a good 30 minute episode (if Buffy were still up and running. Tara, too.), but it was my first modern attempt to write.

Hope you find it amusing.

Eugene Delgaudio of Public Advocate of the United States -I offer this link only for completeness, not as a suggestion that you follow it, unless you want to sign up for his email newsletter, which is always entertaining and can be deleted easily even if the bafflement lingers- wants Catholics who live in fear of roving gangs of lesbians, glitter queens, and teh buttsecks to send him money to… do… something. Something Christian-y, I’m sure, like burning witches at the stake or compelling Jews to accept Christ into their greedy hearts. You know, what Jesus preached about, ideals that Catholics live by even today. Catholics who are apparently more gullible than my email reader (click for the big picture):

Joy Jervis over at Joe.My.God covers Eugene’s buffoonery much more in depth. Stop by and get a taste of the crazy!

Sorry for the long delay between posts. I’m especially disappointed because the momentum of my posting new material -even though this is supposed to be a blog about comic books and writing that has somehow become a food diary- had become a joy to me whereas in the past several months, it had been something of a dreadful obligation. Not that comic books and stories and writing are burdens to me, but when I write about food, I don’t have to be as clever or as exciting as I sometimes think I have to be when I’m pounding my head at my desk, hoping that just the right turn of phrase or astounding juxtaposition is going to appear on my screen through sheer force of will. When I write about food, I’m simply relating an experience in a way I want people to respond to, and maybe learn something from their responses.

The lesson to myself then is to treat all my writing this way: love it, but don’t become awed (and thereby stunned) by it. Every day can’t be the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.

As the Winter Holidays come closer, I become more expansive about food, almost to the point of parody. Last year, my brother, nephew and I baked and frosted about five dozen sugar cookies; I ordered… let’s say more than $100 of candies and petit fours from Figi’s (so worth it); plus a cheesecake, brownies, pie, and pierogies (which is the topic of today’s post). We were digging our way out of the sweets pile for months. I think the last of the cookies was eaten in February. I hope to be more restrained this year (especially with ridiculous closing costs on the house looming), but come December 12, I’m sure the house will be full of cookie tins and candy dishes.

Pierogies. Yum. I started making these a few years ago Thanksgiving with a friend of mine based on a recipe from his grandmother (so of course, we had to wear shmatas in honor of her). Old World chic aside, there were problems with our first outing. It took us hours to process the dough through a pasta maker, and because we didn’t know to set them in a well-floured tray many of the skins stuck and ripped apart. The final product was tasty, but overall wabi-sabi. I think we ate around 9 PM that year. And I think we were also stoned.

Subsequent productions took less time and had great results. Last year, however, I moved back to PA and had to find a new pierogie recipe (my friend’s grandmother’s was a closely guarded secret). After much research, this is the one I settled on. Here’s what I needed:

2 cups flour, plus extra for kneading and rolling dough
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 large egg
1/2 cup sour cream, plus extra to serve with the pierogi
1/4 cup butter, softened and cut into small pieces

I actually quadrupled the recipe (my Mom wanted a few dozen for herself since last year’s batch was so successful), and it scaled up perfectly. I ended up with around 130 pierogies.

Mixing is easy: dry meets wet under a dough hook for 5 to 7 minutes.

The recipe says that mixing is done when the dough loses most of its stickiness. Most being the most important word. If you handle the dough and leaves behind pasty islands on your hands, it’s too sticky. Keep kneading. If you handle the dough and it feels totally smooth, like a rubber ball, you’ve gone too far. Start over. The best consistency is somewhere in-between.

Refrigerate overnight (just to be sure).

I chose for my pierogie filling the traditional potato and cheese. I went with a sharp cheddar though farmer’s cheese is also excellent choice (however, since I use it in my holiday cheesecake, I don’t want to bore my family with too many similar flavors on their plates). Butter and cream are important (to me) to enrich the flavor of the potatoes. Plus, they’re for the holidays when everyone expects a little indulgence.

Not having a pasta maker and being something of a traditionalist, I’ve taken to rolling out the dough by hand. One thing I did learn about this recipe is that the dough has to be cold in order to be rolled out properly. The warmer it gets, the flakier it becomes, and flaky is not your friend. Cold seems to keep the dough elastic (seriously, this stuff is like gum) and easy to manipulate.

And then I started in with a round cookie cutter…

Of course, I cut the entire sheet out before moving on to the next step. I learned a long time ago (I was actually told by a woman named Marge) that similar jobs in the kitchen should be done all at once before moving onto the next step. Common sense, I know, but at that time I was still pretty stupid. Dough that was left at the end of making the rounds was balled up and put back in the fridge for subsequent rolling.

The it’s simply a matter of filling…

…folding…

and crimping.

Then the completed perogies are placed on a generously floured tray (about 1/4″ all the way across) to await bagging and freezing. I use a stolen Taco Cabana tray I found, but use whatever is available to you. If you’re wondering about all that flour, fret not! The excess will boil away when you’re ready to make them.

Voila!

I have not yet made any from this batch, but my Mom has, and she tells me they’re delicious. That may seem like she’s just being my Mom, but if they were horrible she just wouldn’t have said anything rather than lie to me. Silence = Disappointment.

Over the next dew weeks, I’ll be posting my other holiday baking efforts. Next up: saurkraut balls!

This isn’t really a recipe at all, but something that I thought would taste good given how much I love (and have been using of late) bacon: BACON-FRIED PUMPKIN SEEDS!

The bacon was half-way crisped slowly to render the fat, which was then drained to just coat the pan. The bacon was left in as the seeds were added.

A little salt. About 20 minutes of medium-high heat, and voila! Salty Halloween snacking!

Taken gratefully from Secret Tips of the Yumiverse, who made it possible for me to bake Thank You Cookies for co-workers tonight with only a fraction of the effort I would have otherwise had to put forth. Click for the full-glory version.

I swear that unless something completely unexpected happens, this will be my last post about bacon jam! Seriously. Not only are there only so many times one can revisit a recipe then thrust it upon an unsuspecting public, but I think I’ve perfected my take on this wonderful condiment. This recipe is not only deep in bacon-y flavor, but is hot HOT HOT! here’s what I used:

1 lb. bacon
1 large onion, sliced
6 fresh jalapenos, sliced
5 cloves garlic, rough chopped
1 Tbsp. kosher salt
1 Tbsp. cracked black pepper
1 tsp. cumin
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
2 Tbsp. cocoa
1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes
1 tsp. ancho chili powder
1 1/2 c. strong coffee
1/2 c. apple cider vinegar
4 Tbsp. dark brown sugar

The technique is the same as before: fry the bacon slowly until crisp then remove to a paper towel-lined plate. Drain most of the fat away and sauté the onion, garlic, and jalapenos in the remainder. Here is where I added the dry ingredients so they could come back to life. When the onions are soft, pour in the coffee and vinegar, and add the brown sugar. Reduce heat to low and simmer for at least two hours until most of the liquid that remains is thick and sticky. Cool then transfer to a food processor and chop to a rough consistency. Simple simple, and delicious!

That’s it. Final word on the topic.

In my continuing quest for the perfect pie crust, today I’m going to follow the suggestion of a fellow culinary explorer and make a vinegar pie crust. However, my last crust -flawed as it was- still had a nice flake and taste to it, so I wanted to keep the shortening and butter combination. After searching around a bit, I found a lard-butter-vinegar recipe that hearkens back to my Russian ancestors. And while it looked good, I not being one to cook often with lard (…actually, never), substituted my traditional shortening. Here’s what I needed:

2 1/2 c. flour (1/2 cake flour, 1/2 AP)
1/2 tsp. salt
1 TBsp. sugar
6 ounces cold butter, cut into pieces
7 tsp. shortening
1 tsp. cider vinegar
5 to 7 TBsp. ice water

From what I read, all the ingredients must be at room temperature, including the melted butter. This obviously isn’t a pie that can be made at the last minute, unless you have some kind of warming-but-not-cooking device. I’m pretty sure the microwave doesn’t count. If you’re wondering about the mixing of cake flour and AP flour, it’s to create a pastry flour, which is highly desirable in… well, pastries like this. The key is to work fast and make sure everything stays cold. My personal goal is to not freak out, but rather to make sure the dough is of the right consistency before I remove it from the food processor.

After letting it rest for a few hours (and simultaneously letting the ingredients for the filling come to room temperature), I could tell already that the dough was of a better consistency than the last one – more pliable, didn’t shrink, didn’t crack – and I didn’t roll it out to near-paper thinness as I have been known to do. I set it in the pie tin easily enough, and then went to work on the filling with Sprout (whom I intend to make into a decent mini-chef by the time he’s in fifth grade).

I haven’t been party to making a Lemon Chess Pie in about two years, so I had to find a recipe that I liked and had the supplies on-hand for. Eventually, I settled on this one. Here’s what I needed:

4 eggs
1 1/2 c. sugar
1 Tbsp. cornmeal (I used yellow)
1 Tbsp. flour
1/2 tsp. salt
5 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted
1/2 c. buttermilk
1/3 c. lemon juice
1 tsp. lemon zest, finely grated
1 tsp. vanilla extract

I sadly didn’t have fresh lemons to use, so no hand-squozen juice nor zest were used in the making of this product.

The four eggs were lightly beaten,

then the dry ingredients were stirred in. I premixed these so I wouldn’t spend too many strokes trying to incorporate them with the eggs. Is this traditional? Who knows? The next time I’m at a post-Sunday service potluck, I’ll be sure to ask the folks there what they do.

The remaining ingredients were then stirred in, then the whole mess was poured into the waiting pie crust (unbaked) and placed in the oven (350°) for 35 minutes or until the top was brown and the custard setting. YAY! The crust didn’t shrink like it did with the banana cream pie. Lesson learned; thick crust is good.

When the pie cooled, it was cut and served.

This was definitely a better crust than the last time, hands down. The pie itself is a wonderful mixture of buttery and tart in a creamy custard. I’ve had three slices already. Not only do I believe I’ve found a crust I can live with, but I’m sure by the time Christmas rolls around I will be both King of Pies and twenty pounds heavier.

This recipe comes to my courtesy my friend Tim, who showed me how to do a “fresh pack” of pickled jalapenos a few weeks ago. His demonstration, however, used up all the peppers I had on hand (not that I’m complaining; the two jars I came away with look amazing), so I’ve been rather impatiently waiting for my bush to yield one more crop before the frosts come. But -frabjous day!- my friend Leslee just now gifted me with peppers from her garden. Since I leave for NYCC in just about 2 hours (I relay through DC for two days to visit friends before going up to NYC with one of them), Tim’s very simple and quick pickling method seemed to be the way to go. Here’s what I needed:

jalapenos
1 c. vinegar (I used apple cider vinegar this time around)
1 c. water
2 Tbsp. kosher salt
1 Tbsp. black peppercorns
2 (or more) cloves of garlic
an onion wedge
Canning jar with lid and ring

I got enough brine to fill one quart-sized jar. Scale upward according to your needs. The spices and/or herbs can be changed up according to your tastes. I despise pickling spices as they are too sweet tasting for me. Turmeric comes to mind as an interesting addition. Or possibly star anise. Go crazy and let me know what you come up with.

All the normal rules of canning apply here – wash and sterilize your jars to prevent bacteria from growing and killing your friends. Nothing sours a dinner party quicker than Death come a-calling. However, this recipe lacks the final processing step, the hot bath that everyone’s Grandma told you about, which makes the sterilization even more important.

As the brine – vinegar, water, and salt- was boiling, the garlic, onion, peppercorns and jalapenos were stuffed into the canning jar. I mean, really crammed. If this batch is like the last batch, the peppers are going to shrink and float to the top, so get as many in there as possible. The hot brine is poured over the jalapenos, the hot lid (I like to make sure it’s hot) placed on the mouth, and the ring screwed on tightly. Tightly. In about an hour, the lid will pop down and you can move the jar to a storage area. Mine is on a shelf in the kitchen, though I understand they can be kept in the refrigerator as well.

In about two weeks, the peppers will have cured and can be eaten. Simple simple.

Whenever you find Batman, you also find… punchline HERE

Digital Fabulists released a collection of my short stories today on Amazon.com. I’m truly amazed and thrilled.

This weekend, I revisited an idea from a few years ago for a friend’s birthday party: the Elvis cupcake. It’s a banana rum cake with a peanut butter frosting topped by candied bacon. It’s also a much more mature presentation than the one from two years ago. YAY growth! One confession: while I am all about from-scratch baking, I was pressed for time to make the cake with the raw ingredients I had on hand, so I cheated and used a yellow cake mix. I swear it’ll never happen again!

The candied bacon was the easiest part of the cupcake (not that any part was difficult): bacon rolled in dark brown sugar and baked on a rack over a cookie sheet at 325° for about 30 minutes. Yes, if you raise the temperature to 350°, the bacon will cook faster, but the sugar will also burn faster. Be patient unless you want to do this step all over again. After the bacon crisps up, remove it from the oven and let it cool. If it’s possible to dice bacon, dice it and set aside for later.

The cake recipe I got from Cooks.com, a site I don’t normally visit because their indexing of recipes is usually quite sloppy; however, it shocked me this time by giving me what I wanted without having to type 20+ words into the search engine just to narrow possible hits down under 1,000. The recipe requires:

1 yellow cake mix
1/8 tsp. baking soda
2/3 c. Bacardi dark rum
2/3 c. water
2 eggs
1 c. mashed ripe bananas (2 to 3 med. sized)

Two unusual things about this recipe: the addition of 1/8 tsp. baking soda -such a small amount when the cake mix already has leavening agents in it- and having to mix the batter for 2 to 4 minutes, which I thought would toughen the final product. I got 21 cupcakes from this recipe, but I’m heavy-handed when I fill the cups. Each batch was baked for 20 minutes at 350° then set aside to cool.

The peanut butter frosting was easy enough. I like to err on the side of more peanut butter (MMMMM! Peanut butter.), which means a little more milk to keep the frosting from going rigid. Whip it to make it airy, but not so much that it deflates.

Assemble and enjoy!

I’ve said before that Fall is pie and pierogie season, and this year I am determined to make the perfect pie crust: one that is flaky and tender, and doesn’t shrink in the oven (which means I’m probably going to have to start doing rim embellishments). At my brother’s request, I’m doing a banana cream pie today.

For the first pie of 2011, I’m going to use Alton Brown’s pie crust recipe. It’s similar to others I’ve seen, and I trust everything that A.B. says (except when he emcees Iron Chef America, but that’s another story). The recipe requires:

3 oz. (6 tablespoons) butter, chilled
1 oz. (2 tablespoons) shortening, chilled (go for trans-fat free, like I did)
6 oz. (approximately 1 cup) all-purpose flour, plus extra for rolling dough
1/2 tsp. table salt
1/4 c. ice water

After a lot of reading, I found that the colder the ingredients that go into a pie crust, the better off the pie crust is. Warmth melts the fat which makes the flour clumpy and turns out a tough crust. Cold dough means the fats melt in the oven and creates the flaky layers. I actually froze the butter and lard, and refrigerated the flour until i needed them. The pie plates were also frozen.

Flour and salt were processed with the butter and shortening until the flour clumped into pea-sized pieces.

The ice water was added a little at a time and processed until the dough held together. Here’s where I went wrong: I didn’t add enough water so that it held together well. When I squeezed a bunch in my hand, it was still rather sandy, but held together just enough that I thought it was done.

Sadly, when I was ready to roll the dough out after letting it set in the fridge for 45 minutes, it fell apart. It was so bad that I had no hesitation about putting the dough back in the food processor and adding more ice water (as quickly as possible), then putting it back into the fridge for another 45 minutes.

This probably had more to do with me being nervous than the recipe itself; whenever I second guess myself while cooking is when I screw up.

When I was ready to roll out the dough again, it was not a very smooth roll; edges frayed and the dough didn’t keep a semi-round shape no matter how often I turned it.

I actually had to do a lot of repairs on the crust, so many so that I had no chance to do embellishments.

And as you can see, the crust shrank in the over (425° for 12 minutes). I’m very disappointed by this. What can I do so this doesn’t happen again?

The filling turned out great, but the was so much of it! I used an English Cream Pie Filling, and even though I read the recipe and even went out to buy a half gallon of milk, I did not… exactly… understand how much custard I was making until I poured the milk into a saucepan and thought, “That seems like a lot even for two pies.” The upshot is: it was too much. Thank God we love pudding.

The topping was just whipped cream. Simple simple.

All in all, the pie tasted good, but the imperfect crust gave me syphilis. Tasty, but with a crisp texture where I rolled it out to thin. The thicker areas were flaky, but not doughy. I’m going to look around for another recipe for round two.

Maybe what I need really is to borrow someone’s grandmother for a week or so.

I’ve written about my Mego collection before, but haven’t gotten around to showing off the dolls (yes, they are dolls, not action figures). Most of them are mine from growing up, though a few are recent acquisitions. Many more are customs that Mego never got around to making, but I really wanted to have – Snowbird, Dr. Strange and the Chinese Wonder Woman are the best of these.

Sadly, my collecting has slowed down the past few years as I haven’t dedicated the same energy to it I used to -my last three are being worked on now (Cloak, New X-Men Jean Grey and Black Canary)- but I still find a lot of inspiration (and envy) from the customs forum over at Mego Museum. Ultra-talented folks hang out there!

Click on the thumbnails for larger pics!

I was craving sweets tonight so I decided to make cookies (I know, I know, it’s after 7 PM), but my supplies on hand were low which meant I couldn’t make anything that required making a dough or… honestly, having any kind of flavor whatsoever. Then I spotted the pie crust dough I had frozen a few months ago and remembered a recipe for making cookies out of them. The process was simple: roll out the rough, sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon, roll, cut (under 1/2″ is ideal), and bake at 450° for 8 minutes (or until brown and bubbly).

Voila! Cookies!

While I may be a comic book nerd, my brother Scott is in no way one. Sure, he listens to my rants about terrible storylines and my praises for excellent, novel writing and art, but shown a picture of Catman he would probably laugh wonder why someone hasn’t been sued for the obvious Batman knock-off. OK, OK, that’s not a great metric because I laughed the first time I saw Catman, thinking he was some kind of out-of-US-copyright-jurisdiction Mexican (maybe Taiwanese) money maker for a drug cartel to finance new stealth motorboats. But you know what I mean: he’s DCnU’s target audience for their relaunch. What then did he think of their flagship title, Justice League #1?

The theme of this article is “point of reference.” From what I am told, I’m not necessarily meant to have one and do not necessarily need one in order to appreciate DC’s new re-lauch–or reboot or whatever you want to call it–of their DC universe. This is a lie. Or a misconception. Or both.

It would not be fair to say that I grew up with comic books, but I do know my share of the comics universe. Like many of my childhood peers, I watched the “Batman” television show and saw Christopher Reeve fly in the first Superman movie. Like a good number of my male childhood peers, I experienced my first surge of hormone carbonation somewhere between the costumes Batgirl and Wonder Woman were curvily poured into every week. (Seeing Batgirl’s motorcycle cross the Batman title sequence was enough to instantly snap my attention to right quick.) However, I do not know or even care about the intricacies of the multiple universes occupied by the post-modern clusters of anti-heroes, doubles, duplicates and dopplegangers that have driven the comics world for the past several years. So, I am a cultural comic geek. I am told that people like me are the target demographic for the new DC. That’s what I’m told. What I got from reading Justice League #1 was not quite what I was expecting and, perhaps, not quite what DC intended.

It has always seemed to me that among the best comic books are those which tell a dynamic story that doesn’t get lost between panels. That is, comics are not films where many squares of information happen by really quickly and make scenes and people seamlessly move to create a story. Comic panels are static; what happens between panels–call them ghost panels, if you will–ought to be readily intuited by the reader bsed on the preceeding and following panels. JL #1 falls quite short of the mark, here. In the first panel, the reader in thrown into a storyline in media res where a rifle-weilding SWAT member tells his superiors that he has Batman in his sights. Behind the sniper are other SWAT members holds a bathed in red light. There is tension. A disembodied typist–the font and balloon style look like an all-caps text message circa 2004–tells us in the caption “There was a time when the world didn’t call them it’s greatest superheroes.” The next panel–the very second panel in the comic book–tells us that we are five years in the past. Already, the comic has timed itself and told the reader that everything he or she is reading will work out and that heroes will be heroes, even superheroes. The intelligent reader might be asking “Well, why were–or is it ‘are’?–the heroes hunted? And how did they get to be heroes to begin with? And if the world didn’t want them, how and why did they stay heroes?”

All of these go unanswered. The reader is thrust into the middle of a simultaneous firefight and chase scene worthy of the best of Michael Bey’s filmmaking. (“Wait, how did we get here? And where did that important bit from a couple of minutes ago wander off to?”)

The rooftop chase scene proceeds apace. Batman is chasing some kind of robotic, dog-like creature. Do we know why? No. Are we meant to know? To tell you the thruth, I’m not sure. This creature will later plant a bomb and detonate it in the name of “Darkseid,” whom neither of this book’s heroes will be able to identify, either.

[Sean's aside - When I read Green Lantern's suggestion that he and Batman go to Metropolois to ask Superman if he's connected to this "Darkseid" person because he's an alien, the implication being all aliens obviously know each other and are in cahoots to bring down this great nation of ours. Like Asians. Or Bank of America. Green Lantern's xenophobia is showing, which makes me wonder why he was chosen to be a Universal cop if he is so distrustful of alien races. I also found it hard to believe that the Guardian database -compiled by near-immortal beings who live on a planet located in the center of the Universe, and who have divided said Universe up into patrolable sectors routinely guarded by corps of ever-on-the-go Green Lanterns- somehow lacks information on Darkseid.]

So, it is held that a point of reference is not necessary for a reader to enjoy these comic books. However, this comic is nevertheless clearly desinged with the diehard fan in mind. It’s as if DC wants its new readers to shake loose of something they themselves are unable–or unwilling–to do. The most telling examples of this 50/50 thinking on DC’s part are the adverts in the comic and the jokes in the story. Not three pages into the comic, the reader is shown an ad for Converse hightops emblazoned with a classically-posed Batman. (He’s swooping down, a shadow from above ready to kick wholesale ass. Beware evildoers!) Above the sneaker are clips of Batman in the same dynamic pose taken from comics throughout the years with the attendant, different iterations of the famous costume. The tagline? “Classic heroes. Classic shoes.” Appealing to the longevity of the character and the geeky fascination with the changes that the costume has undergone through time harldy seems like the tack to take with teh n00bs, does it? Rather, it is a clear pandering to those who know: DC’s old, established audience.

After Green Lantern and Batman meet for the first time–and I can’t imagine a less dramatic scene than these two sizing each other up and forcing exposition out like the last bit of toothpaste in the tube–Green Lantern angrily realizes that Batman is “just some guy in a bat costume” and asks him “Are you freaking kidding me?!” The scene was stolen almost line for line from two animated College Humor videos that made their way around the interwebz in 2008, the tagline for one of which was “Batman faces his toughest adversary yet: Real super powers.”

And lest DC forget the moviegoers, Green Lantern asks Batman whether he intends to simply talk to bad guys in a deep voice upon encountering them, a clear nod to one of the most prevalent criticisms of Christian Bale’s gravel-voiced portrayal of Batman in The Dark Knight in 2009.

The rest of the ads showcase the new DC universe but are bookended by the Got Milk? ad on the back of the comic book featuring Ryan Reynolds’ Green Lantern from this past summer’s theatrical release. Again, if DC intended its audience to be comic neophytes, they are being rather odd about making them feel welcome.

Scott can be reached via his website, Daedalusrose.

Fall starts tomorrow at 5:05 AM, which heralds the beginning of soup and pierogie season. As a precursor to the next three months of decreasing light and increasing cold (I’m so excited for Fall, I may wet myself), tonight I made chicken and dumplings: rich, satisfying, and (contrary to rumor) not too hard to make. Here’s what I needed:

Dredge:
Flour
Adobo
cracked pepper

Soup:
Chicken legs
2 TBps. butter
1/4 c. peanut oil
carrots, diced (or baby carrots like I used)
celery, diced
red pepper, diced
garlic
baby bella mushrooms
basil
rosemary
oregano
dill
smoked paprika
32 ox. box o’ chicken broth (I know. I know. I’ll make my own in a few weeks.)
1 c. apple cider (next time, white wine)
1 c. heavy cream

The chicken legs were dredged in the flour mixture and then fried in the butter/peanut oil until two sides were well-browned.

I removed the chicken then cast in the celery, pepper, carrots and garlic. I sprinkled in the herbs and spices measured according to my taste (it’s why I don’t put measurements down). I myself like a little bit of warm smokiness, so I put in a few extra dashes of paprika.

I sauteéd the mirepoix until the celery turned slightly soft then poured in the broth and apple cider. I did not add the mushrooms at this time because I didn’t want them going soggy, nor did I add the cream because I wanted it to be a fresher element to the flavor. I returned the chicken to the pot and turned down the heat.

I kept the soup simmering for about 45 minutes. It could have gone longer, but the troops arrived home and (uncharacteristically for being so early in the afternoon) declared themselves ready to eat. So, I added the mushrooms and the cream and let everything continue to simmer while I mixed up the dumplings.

Dumplings:
3/4 c. flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/3 c. heavy cream
1/2 tsp. salt
1 egg

I mixed the ingredients well then removed the chicken from the soup. Really, there was no room in the broth for anything, so to make the dumplings, the chicken had to be put off to the side. Then I dropped tablespoonfuls of the dough into the gently simmering broth. I let them cook covered for 10 minutes.

The only thing left was to plate up and serve!

I had considered cutting the chicken up, but I like having a whole leg to pick up and dig into. And it looks more filling that way, like I’m feeding someone who just rolled in from the fields and needs to have his supper on the table before he goes into the cellar to practice black magic. Ah! The rustic life! The best thing about this recipe is that the broth and chicken were flavorful without having to salt heavily. Please feel free to leave comments, now easier since they can be posted via your Facebook account!

Lunch today was cornmeal mush with egg, mixed veggies (broccoli, carrots, water chestnuts, and edamame), pineapple bacon jam, cheddar cheese, and sriracha. I love a quick and easy lunch!