Strawberry Pancakes

1 1/2 cups whole milk
1 tbsp white balsamic vinegar
1 1/4 all purpose flour
1/4 tsp of salt then keep the shaker out
1/8 tsp of cinnamon
1 1/2 tbsp of granulated white sugar
1 1/2 tbsp of demerara sugar or raw sugar in smallish crystals...keep more in reserve
1 tbsp of vanilla
3 1/2 tsp of baking powder
1 1/2 tbsp of canola oil
butter
pint of strawberries

Strawberry topping:
Chop half the strawberries, add sugar, mash (I use the bottom of a highball glass) then chop and add the rest of the strawberries.

I wanted buttermilk pancakes one day and didn't have buttermilk, so I looked up how to make it. I tried a suggestion that worked...put whole milk in a bowl and a bit of white vinegar in there for 5 mins and then use it like buttermilk.

Here I used white balsamic because it tastes so good with strawberries.
Put those two (milk and vinegar) together in a bowl. It doesn't have to wait long...next add the vanilla, salt, sugar, cinnamon, canola oil and make sure it's been about 5 mins before you add the flour and baking soda. Stir...some people say sift, but fuck that. Lumpy is fine. It should be pretty thick...pourable, but thick.

Probably the rest you know...I'm not inventing pancakes.

Oh, and I actually eyeballed everything, and estimated it here....this should work though, but so would a lot of slight variations. It would not hurt to add more sugar and vinegar, especially if you tried it and didn't mind the flavor once already....it will make them, I dunno, tangy?

There were a couple innovations...

I tasted the first pancake and it was milder than I had hoped. This was the best innovation....while the first side cooked I sprinkled a bit of salt on the raw side up, and then some demerara....an even coat, somewhat restrained...I'd guess about a third tsp if pressed.

When I flipped it, the salted sugared side bubbled well, and had lots of deep bubbly pockets for strawberry juice. The sugar also caramelized and I got an occasional crunchy, salty bit. Nice...I might even add a little more next time.

The cinnamon was another innovation...I have a philosophy for sneaking cinnamon into dishes that don't normally use it. If this was blueberry I would use loads, but with strawberry you want just enough to have someone who cooks say, "Is that....cinnamon?"

Whipped cream...you know what to do with that!

Another good idea I didn't use was to put them on a cooling rack when they come off hot....not to cool, just to keep them from steaming on the plate...with making 4 pancakes, I made my two, and Boof got the second set...they were still warm.

Maybe the ideal would be to put a cooling rack on a cookie sheet in a warm oven...especially if you are making lots of them.

Boof says bacon with them. I think fried patties from loose ground pork with ginger and maybe soy sauce in it would be a nice complement. I would put a little of the cinnamon and balsamic vinegar in them, and I think a bit of minced onion, or just as well, nice onion powder would make them perfect.

This dish has a really nice full-mouth flavor. Does that make sense? I talk about that a lot. Like good coffee...it has a great smell and then it has a strong attack and a slow fade and the middle evolves in your mouth. Full-mouth flavors are often emotional experiences of a sort.

I could write a lot more to explain it...in my mind I graph it like an arc...sometimes a dish is weak on the start, or finishes astringent, or lacks a middle and graphically I see that as a dip. Doesn't make it bad, and the full-mouth flavor doesn't happen very often, but I like to notice it when it does.

I usually spend a lot of time critiquing my dishes.....this one, I just really enjoyed. Try it!

Response to a facebook repost by my friend Jessie.

http://media.photobucket.com/image/recent/Kraiden/1300160676871.jpg


Um....payback for Pearl Harbor was getting firebombed and nuked...hundreds of thousands dead, millions injured and homeless. I love how when things fit with their world view it's god or karma (a terribly misused concept).

It keeping with that logic, it fits my world view to say that maybe god has blessed us with such xenophobic and self-centered citizens because he hasn't forgot about Hiroshima.

Actually...when you think about it, the Japanese killed god during the attack on Pearl Harbor, and we are replacing it with a plastic, Americanized version of karma.....which now has a personality a lot like the one god used to have, but without all the rules and speaking in thy's and thou's.

Karma can dance. Karma pops his collar and can close with cougars. Karma makes apps to make your day better. HA! We don't need to do colonoscopies anymore, we know that up people's asses it looks like "karma" is running things! Sardonic woot!

Seriously though....this is just residual costs of creating the "greatest generation". Convincing people that there is a black and white, true evil and true good without them noticing the irony in the concept that we believe you should be "free", and we will kill anybody who thinks differently, well...that's complicated.

I think "free" should officially be spelled that way every time.....with quotes around it.

The war posters, news reels and emotional news reports that geared the US up to sacrifice for the greater good in order to stop fascists (who's basic tenant was sacrifice for the greater good) from taking over their neighbors is still having ripple effects on fucking facebook! Again, HA!

Not that I want to be told what to do by some dictator. Fascism would have probably interfered with our ability to buy consumer goods, and that's why it lost....not because of, well karma or god or whatever.

Pearl Harbor was an attack on a naval base, and while it might have been good tactics militarily momentarily, the Japanese have, in so many ways, conceded over time (in their wisdom) that they miscalculated the unifying force of a unilateral, preemptive attack.

This is a huge positive effect of Pearl Harbor, that we see it as "evil" to just go attacking other countries. It would be a real shame if, as we emerged victorious from WW2, we began to use our elevated status in the world to attack....oh....oh dear.

If countries were elementary school children then the US and Japan definitely share test answers, pass notes, sit together at lunch, and possibly most importantly, swap pudding cups for brownies. They are our great friends. We are damaged by them being damaged. When they pay, we pay.

...And lastly, these people posting disdain for Japan and its struggles, as remnants of probably necessary, surely outmoded propaganda are not representative of the US as a whole. No, that's not what's troublesome about this to me. What pricks me is the full knowledge that these people aren't any worse than representative of Americans, and that Americans aren't any worse than representative of people.

I'm an asshole, you're an asshole as are the Japanese, karma bless their stupid hearts. I fear for a world where sarcasm is the steam valve for the transcendent man, but at least in America I am free to write about it on facebook.

A.

To Eric Ackerson

I used your trick a couple times now....it's great. You told us how you use sriracha as a marinade and I loved the chicken. We went to a superbowl party with my family, and I bought smart chicken wings...they have a good amount of flavor and a balance of meat and skin/fat. I also bought some legs. The wings I soaked in texas pete...I was out of sriracha. I also added garlic cloves crushed, onion powder, pepper and celery salt. I put all that in a freezer bag for a few hours and grilled them over a gas grill pumping out a lot of hickory smoke.....damn. They were perfect. I've never made better wings, and I've been making wings for over 15 years.
I know that the best wings....the ones that hit that wing spot, are those ones breaded and fried and covered in buffalo sauce (texas pete and magarine), but these were WAY healthier, dripping the grease instead of soaking it up, and they had a little smoky flavor too. All without the margarine.
The legs I put in a bag with fresh thyme, lots of cloves of garlic, salt, pepper nice olive oil and a mix of other spices....they turned out, but not as good as the wings.
Last night I bought leg quarters and soaked them in that same texas pete marinade as the wings, and I pan fried them and finished in the oven.
Great!
I just wanted to thank you for the inspiration to use hot sauce as marinade, and pass on that wing trick.

A

Roasted Cream of Tomato Soup

10 nice tomatoes cut in half horizontally. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and herbs de provence and then some nice olive oil. Throw in 10 small to medium cloves of garlic. In the oven at 450 for 30 mins or so. When cooled blend with a 32oz chicken stock and another 1/4 cup of olive oil. Simmer to concentrate a bit...up to half an hour.

Bake 1 in. sq. croutons salted and brushed with olive oil.

Make Mornay sauce....basically mix even parts butter and flour in a warm pan until thick. Add 2x that volume in whole milk and stir until thick. grate in some nice parmesan and young emmentaler. Bechamel add cheese.

Plate it croutons then mornay then soup.

Screenwriting

I did it. Almost 11 pages of crap. It's all based on a theory that makes lots of sense philosophically...that it's easier to rearrange things when there are things to rearrange, and until now I have been constantly rearranging as I went. This prevented finishing....well so the theory goes. I am going to try it. So far, 11 pages..............of crap.

No seriously I am actually doing it. I am a writer today. All the other days were fakes. All the other, "This is really it!" speeches were lies. There is no reason for me to even believe myself, but somehow, against the odds, I really think, feel and believe this is it!
Today I start the hard part of something that comes so easy to me. Everything has always come so easy to me. Everything was possible and available, and I was always so sure I could have it I didn't even try. Until now.

I don't know.....I've been thinking about it a lot. I would love to feel like this was a space that was safe, but I can't even end that sentence with a period....not one declarative statement without doubts peeking over my shoulder. Wait...that's a bad metaphor being that doubts sit atop a large cushy neck supported by my shoulders.

This just doesn't feel safe. It seems ill advised to make this the place. There is danger in being public but a word doc doesn't have the performance aspect that drives expression. If it's not here then it's a bunch of, "Oh yeah." Then nodding and not typing. Who reads this?

Who could read this? Why do I care. I am a tactician. I do not say what I think. I say what I think is appropriate, which leads to the question:

Is this safe? No, and no, that's not the question.

Is this ill advised? Yes, still not the question.

Ah....I have it. Is it worth the risk?

Well for the moment what risk...who the hell cares! I will ease into it.

Now where was I.....Cramerton, NC 1978 or so.

Houses were places where the floors echoed with even children's steps. If you were in an official place the floors were silent almost despite you, but in the houses where I lived at that time even my footed pajama covered feet flogged rhythmically about the house. The house I live in now only has one room that ripples throughout, and that's fittingly my office....the rest has the serenity of a schoolhouse or courthouse or hospital or church....no. The church had warped plyboard floors as if put down by some well intentioned member who overstated his qualifications in the planning. I bet that floor is still the closest thing that church has to a pipe organ....that and a stout lady named Rhonda.

Yes....Rhonda is real, but this isn't what I'm really thinking. Hard floors mean nothing to me now, but I think their sounds must have informed me then. If you were to be walked, blindfolded through buildings; police stations or someone's grandmother's single wide you would know a great deal about the culture you were visiting just from the feel of the floor and the sound.

The floor seems a fitting way to start, and I might have loads of other insights if I hadn't moved on so quickly. One day the put me down on my belly to wiggle and the next thing you know I was getting things out of the fridge on my own, and my footed pajamas were a victim as so many pieces of clothing and the feet became bell bottomed style faux feet hanging inches above mine ever growing own left uncovered slapping around a house with kick drum floors. I remember a picture of me feeding a goat.
It will have to wait. I hope it does.

I am more excited about tomorrow than Christmas. There are no obstacles. I will be a writer for the day... a little writing a little french study, a little drum learning/practice.....a late day walk. Working biceps and triceps and something quite tough on my shoulders.....a little painting in the early evening...just getting back in to it, just picking up something that was unfinished last winter. Something like Fluticasone sp? has turned me from a guy spending hours sneezing per day to 10 sneezes in a month tops....I just had one and didn't hate all existence, quite a change....I recommend it heartily.

Strawberry oatmeal for breakfast. Aderall. Great coffee! I will not be hungry for my light lunch until 10 pm by which time I hope I am ready to start it all over.

Gotta shoot for 10 pages. I will let you know how it goes, but right now is bed time. Aurevoir bonne nuit, dormir bien.....schlaff gut, suss traume, buenos noches a tu y a tus.

Tomorrow I am a writer!

Ultra-Normal: New Use?

Ultra-Normal: New Use?

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&rlz=&q=brooklyn+street+cramerton+nc&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=Brooklyn+St,+Cramerton,+NC+28032&gl=us&ei=BgchTfKELIT7lwedlJGyDA&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=image&resnum=1&ved=0CBsQ8gEwAA

New Use?

I have an idea for this blog. It's gone through so many changes over the past few years, but I've been thinking a lot about getting older. The older I get the more I think about it. Memories are growing fuzzy, and current norms are supplanting old ones moment by moment. I am, like everyone around me becoming less human all the time. I'm not reinventing the journal here, or the blog. So basically that's it....a journal of everything I can remember. How to be Aaron/Human. Useless to everyone but me, but, you know, interesting....maybe.
Ok...let's get started right away. First thing.......I remember.

Ok. Ready. I remember being young. I don't remember being small. I don't remember being aware that I was a thing or that I was alive as opposed to anything else. Self awareness is something I'd like to explore, but at first it was just mom and dad and putting on my coat and washing my face and so on.

I think maybe I will have to intermingle memories with facts that are less than memory for the moment....facts and anecdotes that exist because they have been revisited, but I remind myself that these facts....third house on the left on Brooklyn St. in Cramerton aren't how to be me, and are as descriptive of the changes since then as anything, and that memories are the point. I remember the front porch of a house we lived in when I was 2 maybe 2 and a half, and now the facts: