I don’t have any good ideas for a post, but since the last post here was Gator’s post on Wednesday I thought I should at least make some sort of effort. I’m thinking of capping the weekend with a trip to KFC since I’m getting sick of the Thanksgiving leftovers as I presume so are all of you.
Anyhow here’s some idea scraps you can use to doctor up your ten thousand pounds of over cooked left over turkey.
This one could be pretty good with some needed modifications. First off leave out the peas and put in carrots, celery and onion instead. Gator says children are horrible I say peas are horrible. Besides, if you want something green in there you know all the extra celery you got is just going to take up refrigerator space until you finally throw it out in a week or three. I’d also say leave out the turkey because who the hell likes turkey anyways except the whole idea is to get rid of the turkey. And definitely butter up the bread crumb topping and don’t worry about cholesterol because you’re going to die anyways.
Delusional Thinking Skills
As often as I am able to hang out with my son and fellow patients I expect to be the recipient of some expert coaching in this regard.
Speaking of which, I saw a report or a week or two ago that the Twins were talking with the Diamondbacks about Paul Goldschmidt. That would be a pretty decent replacement for Super Joe.
What delusional expectation do you expect to crush your soul this off season?
The Faith Of Uncertainty
About half a century ago I wrote a term paper called that for a course on the epistemology of history that I was taking from a Croceian historicist {Professor John Thayer – University of Minnesota). It involved Croce’s emphatically non teleological approach, Hume’s response to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, and Heisenberg’s Principle of Uncertainty. He was somewhat taken aback, but did nominate me for a merit scholarship some time later.
It is was about embracing our inevitable (yeah I know how can I use a word like inevitable if all is uncertain – but the whole point is that the only thing that is inevitable and certain is uncertainty) final uncertainty as a source of faith and hence strength as faith is not possible without uncertainty.
I’m sure that the connection between Croce, Hume, the H Block constant, and baseball is obvious to all of you, but it’s going to take me a little time to figure it out and I’ll have to get back to you.
In the meantime what do you know that you don’t know?
Fan Interference 
I had the best of intentions to write a post — finally — on our CT Tigers adventure from August; however, being married mightily impedes my writing habit (and I have been busy shopping around an oped). How is it that in 3 days I did no writing? We went to the movies, but other than that, we haven’t really ventured out either. I feel my mother guilting me for not being productive with my days. And I haven’t caught up on sleep either.
I will say in the last year, generally, I find myself unmotivated to write. In part, because I feel it is a waste, but also, because all of the shrieking voices of the last year or so have made me want to participate less. I really can’t be part of that noise and it appears that’s all most people are interested in. I’m tired of reading the same hysteria on multiple sites — none of which is novel or insightful. So, I’ve just stepped back. I halfheartedly started a new project that will go nowhere but gives me a little pleasure to do. It isn’t some thing for the digital arena, which is probably part of why I’ve been into it.
Anyway, shout out to Greenberg’s in Tyler, Texas for a really great smoked turkey. They shipped it to us, so we had a nice bird arrive at our doorstep Thanksgiving eve. Paper was in turkey leg heaven. I greatly recommend them.
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Responding as the most micro of your audience, I’ve always found your pieces here to be unique and insightful. Knowing nothing of your outside work, I can still say, you have a strong moral center and a gift for making it appealing rather than pedantic.
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Thank you. I appreciate that.
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I don’t think we shriek here. Please stay and write when you feel like it.
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I might shriek a little if the Yankees sign Machado and Harper and the Twins re sign Fernando Rodney
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Narrator: They Did. And He did.
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I’ve spent parts of the last two weeks preparing the cassoulet I served this afternoon to da wife, my son, my daughter, her fiancee and his father as part of our un-turkey Thanksgiving weekend. Here’s how:
Two weeks ago yesterday: I quartered two organic, free range ducks, skinned them, chopped the skin into small pieces and rendered them down for their fat over low temperature in a saucepan with 1/4 cup of white wine and 1/4 cup of spring water. While the skin was rendering I liberally salted the meat, including the necks, and put it aside uncovered in the fridge. When the skin was fully rendered, I removed the cracklings with a slotted spoon, wiped off the meat, cut the legs and wings at the joints, cut the necks into four pieces each, and further rendered the meat in the fat at low temperature for several hours, till the meat was falling off the bone.
That evening, I stripped the tender meat from the bones, placed it into mason jars and sealed it with the fat. I left the meat to macerate in the jars at room temperature overnight, then put the jars in the fridge to keep until this morning. Voila! Confit for a king.
Last Thursday, after returning from a Thanksgiving party at a friend’s house: I put 2 lbs. of freshly picked and dried Tarbais beans from Rancho Gordo in 2 quarts of cold water in the liner of my pressure cooker to soak overnight.
On Friday, I prepared the beans. First I pressure cooked them for 20 minutes, then transferred them to a large ceramic lined pot adding one whole peeled soup carrot, one whole medium onion studded with cloves, a bouquet garni of celery tops, bay leaves, flat parsley sprigs and fresh thyme tied with a string, five whole garlic cloves, and a 12″ long, 5″ wide strip of pork rind rolled up and also tied with a string, and about 1/2 cup of finely minced de-rined pork skin. I simmered the beans at low temperature for about four hours, raising a succulent broth. I sealed the pot and let it stand overnight, then put it in the fridge on Saturday morning.
On Saturday evening, I took the jars of duck confit from the fridge and let stand on the kitchen counter to melt the fat seal.
This morning, I sliced four large mildly spiced pork sausages into six pieces each, and chopped a half pound of pancetta into small chunks. I removed the onion, carrot and rind from the beans, removing the cloves, chopping the vegetables roughly and returning them to the pot. I stirred the veggies back into the beans and broth. I removed the string and sliced the pork rind into four thick spirals.
Next, I ran the confit through a strainer, massaging (but not rinsing) the meat to force most of the fat into the sink. Then, I ladled a thick layer of beans and broth into a large casserole, and covered that with the confit. Next, I covered the confit with another layer of beans and broth, and covered that in turn with the sausage rings and most of the chipped pancetta. After ladling out the last of the beans and broth, I decorated the top with the rings of pork rind and sprinkled the last of the chopped pancetta across it.
I baked the cassoulet in the oven at 300 degrees F. for four and a half hours, undisturbed, except for breaking up the bean starch and crisped duck fat crust every hour or so to let the juices bubble up and form a thicker crust.
I served the cassoulet straight from the oven, accompanied by a bottle of Domaine de Souviou 2010 Bandol. A lot of eyes rolled up. I know it wasn’t KFC or leftovers, exactly, but it seemed to round off the long weekend with panache. Here’s about what a cassoulet looks like:
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As one who does not shy away from most reasonably complicated recipes, even I have got to admire your ambition.
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You’d’ve admired it even more if you could have tasted it. According to the cassoulet cookbook Rancho Gordo sells in a package with two pounds of tarbais beans, I made enough for ten people. Six of us finished it off, then lapsed into comas until this morning.
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