PAgent’s Progress

While everyone else in Portland is making and/or eating and/or judging pies, I decided to take another stab at beef brisket before I run out of summer.

As I think I’ve mentioned before, this is the first summer I’ve felt comfortable listening to my intuition when barbecuing. I’ve made good ribs, I’ve make good pulled pork, but after my last debacle with a crunchy brisket I’ve been intimidated to try again.

Nevertheless, I picked up a half-brisket, mixed up a basic dry rub, and applied it liberally:

I smoked it, fat side down, at about 275 F for one hour, then turned it fat side up. I used a mop of beef broth, a little vegetable oil, Jack Daniels, Tabasco, and spices and cooked for an additional two hours. At that point, the meat was done, but not tender, so I wrapped the brisket in a double thickness of heavy-duty aluminum foil, poured in about 1/3 cup of the mop, and sealed it up. The brisket cooked for another 3 hours at about 230 F.

It looked and smelled wonderful. After cooling a bit, I tried slicing it. It practically fell apart. I couldn’t possibly wait until dinner, and slapped a few fresh slices on a bun:

I drizzled a bit of warmed barbecue sauce on top, hoping to accent the flavor of the brisket, without overpowering it.

It was really good. The brisket had a lot of the flavor that I associate with some of my mother’s best pot roasts, the delicious by-product of breaking down the connective tissue into tasty collagen during the long braise. It’s easily the best brisket I’ve made (which isn’t saying much), but I think it turned out pretty damn good, period.

Here’s a clip where Adam and Jamie illustrate the difference between a CPU and a GPU using a single paintgun, and a monster 1100 barrel paintgun.

Awesome.

via Geekologie

The Wife is ready to send the kids back to school. Preferably at high velocity. And in a ballistic trajectory. We’re at the end of a long and strange summer, and it’s been a bit of an endurance contest for her. Here’s a fine example:

The other day the Wife found a couple of water balloons in our daughter’s room. We have a fairly strict “no water balloons in the house” rule, for obvious reasons, and so the Girl was grounded to her room until it was clean (this translates to a minimum of two days for our daughter), and she lost all screen time (TV, video games, computer).

So far, so good. Then the next day, when my wife stuck her head into the Girl’s room, she spotted several balloons, just like the water balloons from the day before. When she picked one up, however, she realized they were full of air. She looked suspiciously at the Girl.

“What happened to the water balloons?”

The Girl looked confused for a moment, and then quizzically said “What water balloons?”

Now you have to understand that my wife’s memory is not exactly razor sharp. She knows this, and to compensate she often checks in with me to make sure she’s remembering things correctly. She’s also a list-maker, but that’s a mental illness we can discuss another time. The point is, the Girl’s response was enough to make my wife doubt her memory and possibly her sanity. Were there water balloons in her room? Did she actually pick them up? She remembered picking them up, but did she really do it? Or did she assume they were water balloons, and manufacture the memory of actually picking them up?

She went to me for a reality check, somewhat distraught, and I went to my Source: the Boy. The Boy, bless his heart, cracks like an egg under even gentle questioning, and under these circumstances he was more than happy to rat out his sister. He specifically remembered that she was filling water balloons in their bathroom the night before she was caught with them in her room.

Busted. I reported back to the Wife, who then went after the Girl with a vengeance.

Yes, my daughter was perfectly capable of realizing what her mother’s weaknesses were, and crafting a demonstration specifically designed to create self-doubt in her mother’s mind, with some superb acting skills to sell it to her.

I used to fantasize that my daughter would win the Nobel Prize, or become President. Now I just lie awake at night and pray that she uses her powers for good instead of evil.

He looks like a sweet and gentle puppy, doesn’t he? Well don’t let his looks deceive you: He’s a killer.

The Girl and a friend were walking Gus in the local park yesterday when Gus suddenly lunged around a tree. There was a squirrel behind the tree. Gus knew this. My daughter did not.

Needless to say they were rather surprised to find Gus with a mouthful of wriggling squirrel. With much yelling and shaking, they got him to drop the little rodent, which ran off. However, given the amount of blood on Gus’ muzzle, I have my doubts that Rocky survived the experience.

There were still traces of blood on his face when I got home. I can’t stop thinking that he’s tasted blood, and he knows how easy we are to catch. I fear that someday I will awake in the middle of the night to find him standing on my chest, the blue light from my CPAP gleaming on his teeth, and then SNAP! The lights will go out forever.

In all seriousness, I think we’re going to have be even more paranoid about Gus getting loose and chasing a neighborhood cat. What if he had done that to some Fluffy white long-hair?

Get in an airplane with a napless, constipated two-year old and all rules about entertainment are off: We’d let her watch Canadian ice-fishing bullfight porn if it would keep her occupied.

From Doodaddy

The groundswell of enthusiasm in Portland for the approaching Pie-Off has me thinking about pies. Pies were always the dessert of choice in our family, cake coming a distant second, and usually only on birthdays. Important holidays typically required two or three pies, like pecan, pumpkin, lemon meringue, rhubarb, blackberry. It should be easily understood, then, that the ability to actually make a pie would be an important skill in my family.

In my opinion, the challenge of making a delicious pie filling pales in comparison with the task of making a good crust. The crust is more than merely the holder for the filling. A good pie crust is a study in contrasts. It has to be strong enough to support and contain the filling, and yet also be tender and flaky. And it must be tasty. To make matters worse, the recipes that turn out the best pie crusts are usually the most difficult to roll out without splitting, cracking, and falling apart when you try to transfer them to the pie pan. And yet if you work them a little longer, to make them a little stronger, you get a tough crust with none of the flaky goodness that you hoped for.

It can be utterly, utterly frustrating for a beginning piemaker.

When I started trying to make my own pies, my mother handed me a recipe titled “Perfect Pie Crust”, but she referred to it as “Idiot-Proof Pie Crust”. This recipe makes 5 single crusts, and the dough has a consistency similar to Play-Doh. They roll out easily, and if you screw up the crust, you can wad it all back up and roll it out again. No, really. They can even be frozen and thawed to use later. And the best part is, it makes a pretty good crust. It won’t be as tender as a true pastry crust, but it’s pretty darn good, and the benefit of being easy to use makes this a perfectly acceptable trade-off for a beginner.

IDIOT-PROOF PIE CRUST

4 cups unsifted flour, lightly spooned in cup
1 Tbsp sugar
2 tsps salt
1 3/4 cups solid vegetable shortening (not oil, lard, margarine, or butter)
1 Tbsp white or cider vinegar
1 large egg

– Put the first 3 ingredients in a large bowl and mix well.
– Add shortening and mix with a fork until the mixture is crumbly.
– In a small bowl, beat together 1/2 cup water, the vinegar, and egg.
– Combine the two mixtures, stirring with a fork until all ingredients are moistened.
– Divide dough into five portions, and using your hands shape each portion into a flat, round patty ready for rolling.
– Wrap each patty in plastic or waxed paper and chill for at least half an hour.
– When ready to roll out a crust, lightly flour both sides of a patty, and put it on a lightly floured board or pastry cloth.
– Cover rolling pin with stockinette and rub in a little flour. Keeping the pastry round, roll from the center to a thickness of 1/8 inch, and a size that’s 2 inches larger than the inverted pie pan.
– Fold in halves or quarters, then transfer to the pie pan, unfold and fit loosely in the pie pan. Press with fingers to remove air pockets.

Note: I have never bothered with a pastry cloth, or a stockinette, and it works just fine.