R.I.P. Sir Neville Marriner

More sad news came in this morning.
The now-formerly-ubiquitous Sir Neville Marriner has died at the age of 92.

The founder and long-time conductor of the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields was one of the most recorded conductors ever, and he was actually quite excellent at it.

There was even the Detroit connection through his time as artistic director of Michigan's Meadowbrook Festival from 1979-1984.

He will be well and truly missed.

R.I.P. Arnold Palmer

I'll admit it - I used to watch golf on television.
I still do on occasion, but not as often as I did in the days of Arnold Palmer.

Yep. I was a member of Arnie's Army and mighty proud of it.
In fact, my golf clubs (excepting the putter) boldly display Arnold Palmer's autograph - at least as printed on or forged into them.

He was a great guy, by all accounts, and it would be nice to hoist a mixture of Iced Tea and Lemonade in his memory.

Shockage du Jour - 14 August 2016

I'm shocked at times to find that I agree on a topic with someone with whom I generally disagree. There are even times when I find myself embarrassed to agree with someone who is generally repulsive or repugnant to me.
I'll not name names here, but I will give one example that's milder than most.

I think of Mitch Albom as a good writer and generally good guy. I like a lot of his charity work and enjoy reading his columns from time to time.

Still, we don't tend to be in the same part of the political and economic policy spectrum most of the time, so I was pleasantly surprised to read his column on the death tax this weekend.

It's a very nice indictment of the general government attitude of "you don't earn that money, we just let you keep some of it to spend on yourself" that passes for tax policy these days.

Check it out here if you haven't read it yet.

Nicely done, Mitch.
 

Joyage du Jour - 16 July 2016

I realise that I waited a fairly long while to post this, but I wanted to have a bit of perspective before essaying the topic.

Happily, perspective seems not to have changed much of anything here. Joy is the weakest word that will remotely touch the experience.
You see, Christian - yes, my flavour consultant of many a carnage noted here - got married, and it was a wonderful day.

The rehearsal dinner was fabulous, what with mussels, Belgian beers, and feather bowling at the Cadieux Café.
The ceremony was perfect - personal and real in the beautiful sanctuary of Grosse Pointe United Methodist Church.
The bride was beautiful, of course. Not that she needed bridality to be beautiful, mind you - Dana is a beautiful woman in any way you care to imagine.
The reception was as much fun as can be had, what with friends, family, new family, new friends, food, dancing, music, photography, and whatever else could be needed or wanted.

The best part is that we now have a daughter, and we love her.
We have a son, and we love him.
We have them both, and we love them each, but even better, we love them together.

Marriage is a wonderful thing - a dream within a dream.

God sure can design and ordain spectacular stuff!

Carnage du Jour - 01 July 2016

We had a nice roasting chicken in the refrigerator and it was next in line so what to do?
I had cleverly had my butcher cut out the backbone (retaining it for stock purposes, of course), so it wasn't going to take terribly long to cook in butterfly (or spatchcock) mode. The weather was great and the Weber grill beckoned.

While the coals got ready, I remembered having seen a recipe for Persian spiced chicken, but didn't seem to have any ground allspice (I know, really?), so I went into improv mode.
I made a blend of cinnamon, nutmeg, Hungarian paprika, chipotle powder, and garlic salt and rubbed that onto the very lightly oiled skin of the chicken.
It started skin side up over a cool part of the fire, then flipped a couple times, moving around to get a crispy skin and a fully cooked interior.
Rice and corn made for a nice pair of sides and the chicken was very tasty - juicy and crispy with a slight afterglow of spice with each bite. It was spicy in the sense of flavourful, but not in the sense of hot as it seems to be used today.

Delicious and highly recommended - definitely one to be repeated.

BREXIT - 23 June 2016

A Nation Once Again!

Carnage du Jour - 04 June 2016

Tenderloin - but this time it wasn't pork, it was beef.

I had bought a whole beef tenderloin some time ago and cut it into two two-pound-ish roasts, cooking one and freezing the other.

Well, as I said, that was some time ago and it was time to cook the remaining, now-thawed portion.

Since my trusty Better Homes & Gardens cookbook told me that tenderloin should be roasted at a higher temperature than most cuts (it might have been 425 rather than 350?), I thought I'd do it on my (also trusty) Weber grill.

The fire was doing its thing, getting ready in the chimney starter, so I pulled out the roast and gave it a liberal rubbing of kosher salt, dried thyme, and dry mustard. At the same time I was lightly marinating some fresh Michigan asparagus in a mixture of balsamic vinaigrette and green goddess dressings, as well as preparing some cheese-stuffed mushroom caps for the grill.
Simply grilling it for something on the order of 25 minutes (turning it every 5 or 10, eventually checking with my instant read thermometer for an internal 140) with the other items joining after a few minutes was all it took.

I have to admit that this was one of the most successful beef tenderloins I've ever done, and the sides were so good as to evince the comment from Heidi that she didn't know which of the three items was her favourite.

Delicious and highly recommended.