Iron Chef Leftovers

Something occurred to me the other day while I was watching Iron Chef America. What in the heck do they do with all that leftover food when a battle is over? Not the food on the plates, but that supposed "Pantry Nirvana" that they have. These people are making some of the fanciest foods around. It would make sense that they have a very large, very diverse pantry for the Chefs to pick ingredients from.

Do they send it to a local Soup Kitchen? Can you picture that? Some toothless old bum that hasn't changed clothes in 2 months eating a white truffle torte. A crack whore slurping a delicate veal consume from a bowl with out even a glance at the spoon. The alcoholics breaking into the kitchen to steal the scads of fine wines and liquors.

In truth, there isn't really that much leftover. They film 24 episode of Iron Chef America over a period of 20 days. I'm sure some stuff doesn't get used. But, with such a high volume of food, they're probably more likely scrambling to re-stock the pantry. I actually found a fairly interesting article about the show, and it's worth checking out.

Just a Little Doodle.

Recently one of the kids I watch, my nephew, started going to day care so he could have more interaction with other children his age. This has left me with about two hours a day in the morning when there is nobody home but me. This has given me the opportunity to do a few things that I couldn't before.

I've been trying to exercise a little more lately. Yesterday I walked down to the local Disc Golf course and shot a round. It felt good to get out and do something healthy for a change. I was going to go again this morning. However a band of thunderstorms moved in and ruined any chance of getting outside.

So I decided to brush the dust from my Wacom tablet. A Wacom tablet is a computer peripheral, like a mouse, but it consists of a tablet and a pressure sensitive pen. It's really great at imitating realistic media, such as brushes and pencils. Unfortunately, it took me a couple of hours to get it working, because I've switched monitors since the last time I used the tablet. So, after trying a couple of different things, I finally updated the driver, and it worked great.

Anyway, I had a thought while looking at one of the graffiti ridden benches down at the Disc Golf course. Wouldn't it be cool if someone painted an appropriately Disc Golf-ey mural on the benches? I would never do it myself. I'm sure it would be public defacement, or something else illegal like that. I couldn't shake the idea, and seeing as I was trapped inside, I decided to draw something. I dickered with the tablet for so long that I didn't get much done, but I'll try to get back to this sometime next week. With out further ado, my progress so far:

Why I Would not Make a Good Cashier

I was at my local grocery store, the other day, and I realized that I would not make a good cashier. Who needs that kind of stress? The stress of being accurate within one penny of your drawers amount?

I have had cashier jobs in the past. Currently, I stay at home, watching children. However, I know what a cashier's job is all about. I've done that job before. I know that you have to concentrate on what you are doing at every single moment to be accurate.

What if your a free spirit? Your mind is wandering constantly. What if you think about random things (like me) whenever the mood strikes you? Where is Carmen Sandiego? Who killed Jimmy Hoffa? How many moves does it really take to solve a Rubik's Cube?

I don't know the answers to any of those questions. But, I think about this kind of stuff constantly. It distracts me from the task at hand. Every cashier job that I've ever had has ended in disaster. Twenty-three cents off here, seven cents off there. I mean, who really cares? You are a billion dollar corporation, for Pete's sake, and you care about the pennies? You're going to fire me over this?

I feel that I'm a pretty intelligent person. So many people can do this job well. Why can't I?

Butterflying a Whole Chicken

Here we sit at the very cusp of grilling season. Spring has sprung, and it's time to get outside. To long have I stared out the kitchen window at my Weber siting lonely next to the garage.

I've decided to start the season with a whole chicken, butterfly cut. This is ideal for grilling because it flattens the chicken out, and exposes more surface area to the direct heat of a grill. There are easier ways to roast a chicken on a grill with indirect heat. My brother loves to cook a chicken on a grill with a can of beer shoved up it's butt. However, we all crave variety. Butterflying a chicken will give you a very tasty bird with great presentation. Serving up a whole chicken with a bunch of nice grill marks on it is sure to impress most people.

Warning: The following pictures can be a little graphic if you've never seen someone brutalize(cut-up) a chicken before. Proceed with caution.

We start with a whole chicken. Don't go for the biggest chicken you can find because the final product will be to thick, and take forever to cook. Probably leading to a burnt exterior. The reason we are butterflying in the first place is flatten the chicken, causing it to cook more quickly throughout. Get a nice heavy duty knife or cleaver and a solid cutting surface. Place chicken breast side up on the cutting board.

Start cutting along one side of the back bone. You will have to cut through all the rib bones. This will be a little difficult. Don't be afraid to use some muscle and be careful not to slip. Kitchen scissor are helpful at this point, also.

Cut along other side of backbone, completely severing it from the chicken. Either discard backbone, or place it in a Ziplock bag in the freezer and use it later for making stock.

Next, we have to remove the keel bone. This is a bone that runs down the middle of the breasts. I made a few markings on this picture to illustrate key areas. The blue lines are where you need to make a "V" cut, releasing the head of the keel bone. The red lines represent the two pieces of cartilage that attach the keel bone to the ribcage. You need to cut through these also. Next, get your thumbs underneath the keel bone on either side and run them down the length of the bone, where I've placed the green lines. The chicken will pull away from the sides of the keel bone fairly easily

Here you see the initial "V" cut, cutting throught the cartilage mentioned before.

Here is the chicken after running your thumbs along the keel bone.

Next, just remove keel bone by pulling it up and out of the chicken. It should release fairly easily. There isn't much holding it in there anymore. Discard keel bone, or store with backbone and the bag of innards that comes with the chicken for making stock later.

And that's it! Flat as a pancake. Well, not quite, but a heck of a lot flatter than it was.

Now season her up get your ass out there to grill that bird!

Fire Ball Hockey

I just found out about this thing called Fire Ball Hockey. It's exactly what it sounds like. You take some kind of ball, soak it in some kind of flammable material, light it on fire and play hockey with it.

At first I thought this was pretty cool. Until I researched it a little bit. I mean, it's still cool, but after the 5th crappy Youtube video, it starts to lose it's charm. Plus, I don't play hockey.

So, my suggestion to you is to go out and get a tennis ball, soak it in gasoline or lighter fluid, and kick it around for a minute. You'll have some fun playing with the fiery little ball until you almost set your foot or garage on fire. Still, probably worth doing once, anyway.

She Blinded Me with Science

I guess you would have to be a regular Food Network watcher that just happened to grow up in the 80's and be a fan of the music from that era to notice this, but has anyone ever noticed how much the geeky cook Alton Brownlooks like 80's pop star Thomas Dolby?Creepy.

A Better Soap.

Remember your first swear word? I don't, but I sure as hell remember what happened afterwards. That's right. A big ol' mouthful of whatever bar soap your mom had on hand. Open wide, big fella. Using language like that you should be able to handle this little bar of soap. Moms and dads use this punishment even today. Not just for swear words, either. It's used for mouthiness, bad attitude, and general misbehavior.

The popularity of this punishment has worn off, though. I think mostly due to liquid hand soaps and body washes. Hell, I couldn't even tell you for sure if I had an actual bar of soap in my house. When you think about it, it wasn't that bad of a punishment, either. Way better than getting spanked with Dad's belt. Especially If you had a big mouth and could mostly keep your tongue away from the offending bar.

I may have a solution. Not to end children misbehaving, but to bring back this fairly effective punishment. Small hand soaps, kind of like guest soaps, that smell very pretty, are vitamin fortified, completely healthy and taste like the absolute cat puke. I'm talking the most putrid taste you can think of. Leave them out all nice and pretty in a basket for company, and then BAM! Slam Johnny with a punishment he won't soon forget. The beautiful part of the soaps would be that they would eventually dissolve in your mouth, and your punishment would be over when the soap wafer was gone. This would be to prevent "big mouths" from escaping full punishment.

Children across the world beware.