Dude, What’s with the Light Blogging?
Like you were around to read anything anyway. But it’s been a weekend of yard work, cookouts and jogging - a typical Memorial Day weekend for Americans who don’t own a Harley. In most ways.
Spent the afternoon in Wheaton Regional Park with my second-oldest and third-oldest friend (in terms of acquaintance - they’re not senior citizens) and their children. Yes, I fixed them up and yeah, I’m pretty proud. Took our kids on the carousel and train. We discussed all the important topics, like, what is the secret to my spiced grilled chicken breast anyway? Answer:
1. Don’t bother with measuring instruments. Get you a custard cup and layer in the spices like you’re making a sand painting. I recommend black pepper, salt, cayenne, cumin, chili powder, more black pepper, mustard powder and paprika just to keep it red. If you pour/shake evenly until you can’t see whatever was beneath it you’ll have a nice quantity of rub for three or four boneless breasts.
2. Stir the rub good with a salad fork, making sure to powderize the stubborn little mustard pellets.
3. Shake rub onto chicken breasts and spread.
4. The fire. I am a triple snob here:
* Charcoal, not gas
* Not that briquet crap, either: get the lump charcoal
* Use a chimney, not lighter fluid
5. Close the lid, open the vents and turn the chicken every three minutes or so until done. This could take up to half an hour or so. A boneless breast will have a “flap” you can pry open to see how the meat is looking inside. As soon as you no longer see pink under the flap, give it one more turn (don’t want to overcook!).
Of course, if you pry the flap itself off with the tongs and eat it, all piping hot and juicy with that vibrant coating of spices on it, before lifting the rest of the chicken off the grill, and do all this in a sanitary manner, well, that’s between you, your id and your superego.
Meanwhile, in a fit of either Alanis Morrisette- or actual irony, a German public TV crew asked if they could interview me about “9/11.” The Germans know that Memorial Day has something to do with remembering “the dead,” and the victims of the September 11, 2001 massacres are dead, so they wanted to bring the word on the Wheaton street to an anxious German public.
I’m afraid the whole thing was a lot like a blog entry.
I mentioned how I don’t like to say, or write, “9/11,” that I prefer to refer to “the massacres of” or “the atrocities of” instead, because the crimes are too appalling to reduce to a date. They asked what I thought about Iraq and Afghanistan. I said I thought two different things about them. As to Iraq, I said that we have a joke in this country, when we get mad at someone, we say, “I’m going to kill you, and anyone who looks like you,” and, well, a good joke makes a bad political program. They asked me if I thought the hijackers murdered all those people because of “freedom” or because of “foreign policy.” Foreign policy, I said, then looked the guy square in the eye and kept talking because some very simple principles bear emphasis: “But that doesn’t make it okay.” Some elaboration on how slaughtering innocent people is bad as in very bad.
And off they went to find more typical or less typical Americans to ask the same questions. I have no idea when or if it will broadcast.
Comment by moonbiter —
May 30, 2006 @ 3:02 am
Do you have an idea of what network they were with, at least? It’s probably too late anyway (it was likely broadcast yesterday, unless it was for a documentary), but it would be cool to see.
Comment by Jim Henley —
May 30, 2006 @ 6:44 am
They said ”German public television.” Everything else was kind of like the grownups sound in the Peanuts cartoons.
Comment by Jeremy Osner —
May 30, 2006 @ 6:52 am
You don’t really need the chimney — it is easy enough to get charcoal to light if you roll up a couple sheets of newspaper for a base and stack the charcoal on top of that like a boyscout building a campfire. (I used lighter fluid until recently but am a convert to newspaper, you end up with a much more consistent fire — my dad says the lighter fluid imparts a bad flavor to the food but I have not a palate sensitive enow to detect such subtleties. For chicken I much prefer thighs, legs or wings in a soy sauce and vinegar-based marinade, dry rub doesn’t really do it for me.
Comment by Jeremy Osner —
May 30, 2006 @ 7:54 am
Criminy! Please mentally insert a close-paren ”subtleties” as you read comment #3.
Comment by Jeremy Osner —
May 30, 2006 @ 7:56 am
…Autocorrection continues: please insert ”after” following ”close-parent” as you read comment #4.
Comment by Jeremy Osner —
May 30, 2006 @ 7:57 am
…I give up…never mind…
Comment by Jim Henley —
May 30, 2006 @ 8:15 am
Jeremy, the meta thread was last month.
Comment by Jim Henley —
May 30, 2006 @ 8:21 am
moonbiter: I wonder if it really could have been on last night? They taped us around 4pm Eastern Dailight Time (-4 GMT?). They’d have to turn that around for a German newscast.
Comment by Avram —
May 30, 2006 @ 10:50 am
But wait, Jeremy, doesn’t the ink on the newspaper impart a flavor to the food as well? Shouldn’t the true connoisseur keep a pad of artist’s newsprint paper around for that purpose?
Comment by Jim Henley —
May 30, 2006 @ 12:32 pm
That’s an interesting thought, Avram, though I think there’s a big diff between ”residual taste of ink” and ”residual taste of flammable petroleum product” in terms of obtrusiveness.
Should note, Jeremy, that I also made some soy-and-vinegar (and olive oil) marinade chicken too. It was also pronounced to be swell. I just didn’t brag about that.
Comment by Avram —
May 30, 2006 @ 12:39 pm
Also there may be toxicity issues with burning ink. I dunno about ordinary black newspaper printing, but I sure wouldn’t use anything printed in color as kindling.
Comment by Jeremy Osner —
May 30, 2006 @ 1:35 pm
Hm, good point. I believe the pages I used were b&w but it is a worthwhile thing to keep in mind for next time.
Comment by Phillip J. Birmingham —
May 30, 2006 @ 3:37 pm
C’mon, guys — it’s not like you cook over burning newspaper. By the time the coals are ready, the newspaper is long gone.
Comment by Jim Henley —
May 30, 2006 @ 3:40 pm
I was toying with them. However, some company used to market a ”newspaper grill” that my grandfather bought and used for years. (I grilled meat over it myself as a boy.) You really did cook over newspapers - ”four crumpled double sheets.” The fat dripping off the meat kept it going. The thing was collapsible and roughly flowerpot shaped when put together. That grill explicitly warned you off cooking over colored paper.
Comment by Brian C.B. —
May 31, 2006 @ 6:46 am
Use an instant-read meat thermometer. Works better than anything, and I use it for hamburgers, too. Keep your meats tender but bacteria-restricted.
Also, I figured that German public television would do an interview like this, but both you and correspondent would have to wear skin-tight latex jumpsuits. The cameraman would sport a ball-gag. Did this happen?
Comment by Gary Farber —
June 2, 2006 @ 6:21 pm
”Also, I figured that German public television would do an interview like this, but both you and correspondent would have to wear skin-tight latex jumpsuits. The cameraman would sport a ball-gag.”
Would he be named ”Dieter”?