Muggsy's Brain

Back in 2009 I wrote about a guy in Florida who is a member of the same online forum as I. He was young, arrogant and had a chip on his shoulder the size of Gibraltar. Later he mellowed out, became a thoughtful if not a bit snarky person and became one of my favorite posters. That all changed again recently when the subject of "lane-splitting" on a motorcycle came up. Lane splitting is when a motorcyclist weaves in and out of traffic congestion by driving between lanes and between vehicles. Any space they see is fair game. I see the practice for what it is: stupid and dangerous. Any motorcyclist who engages in this practice is asking to get side-swiped, hurt or killed. Any motorcyclist who engages in this practice and is side-swiped, hurt or killed is getting exactly what they asked for. Dude in Florida believes that he is entitled to lane-split merely because he is driving a motorcycle. "Why should I be stuck just because you're all stuck in your cages?" ...

I had a gig down in Rochester on Monday of last week so I didn't make it in to work. On Tuesday morning I fired up the roaster, waited an appropriate amount of time and went to check on the pre-heating process only to find that the temperature was holding at 350 degrees. I need between 415-450 to roast beans so I had to figure out what was wrong. Looking at the burners I saw that several of them weren't firing at all, so I cleaned them all off with a wire brush and tried again. No dice. I started thinking that maybe the thermometer was wrong, since it was cracked (has been for some time) and a little bent. It hadn't been wrong in the past, but I wanted to make sure so I ordered a new one. It came on Wednesday, I installed it, preheated the roaster and got 350 degrees again. I tired contacting Probat, but no one called me back. Thursday I called them again and they suggested that maybe there were some gas valves that were acting up, which happens sometimes to a roaster...

The cast of characters: A big ol' bone-in pork chop Jerk Rub Apple-Raisin-Pepper Salsa Parsnip puree Bourbon-brown sugar reduction The salsa is a mixture of finely diced jalapenos, Serranos, poblano, orange bell pepper, red onion, garlic, Fuji apple, raisins, salt, pepper, sugar, cilantro, cumin, white vinegar and lemon juice. The parsnip puree contains a couple of medium parsnips, a small potato, butter, white pepper and chicken stock. The bourbon-brown sugar reduction contains pork drippings, brown sugar, salt and pepper, white vinegar and flour. I rubbed the chop with my homemade jerk rub a couple of hours before dinner to let it really set up in the meat. The jerk rub is as follows (this makes a LOT more than you need, but then you have some around for other meals): 1/4 cup brown sugar; light is best 1/4 tsp ground cumin 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon 1/4 tsp ground cloves 1 tsp red pepper flakes 1 tbsp allspice 2 tsp Kosher salt 1 tsp freshly ground pepper First...

I found a blog called Cooking for Assholes that has some pretty good recipes in it, but can be way too snarky. If you're not into being insulted as you try new recipes you probably should avoid clicking the link. Seriously, the guy has this "if you can't do this you're too fucking stupid" attitude that gets old pretty quick. Too bad, because the guy knows food and his recipes are, for the most part, pretty awesome. Anyway, reading one of his posts the other day got me thinking about making another quiche, so I looked at his crust recipe, which I am going to reproduce here without all the profanity and only about half the snarkiness. Ingredients: 1-1/4 cup all purpose flour 1/2 tsp salt (If making a sweet crust add 1 tbsp sugar) 1 stick (1/2 cup) cold butter, cut into small cubes 3 tbsp COLD water Use your food processor -- don't have one? Get one. If you don't have one you're on your own for the rest of the recipe. All I know for sure is t...

Kate and I have been dating for four years now. I have never known anyone like her and I love her deeply. I proposed before, but she has never accepted before now and I wanted to record how it happened. We have been volunteers for a 50-hour trivia marathon on the local college radio station, KVSC-FM , for years (the contest itself has taken place annually for over 30 years), I record song parodies with the Shake a Hamster Band , she works the phone bank where the competing teams call in their answers. Across the hall from the phone bank is the food station (we are very well fed throughout the whole contest) and this year they had a big bowl of Necco® Sweethearts , which I love (I know a lot of people who don't). Sometime during the weekend, it had to have been Friday or Saturday, I grabbed a handful and wandered across the hall to the phone bank to say "hi" to Kate and give her a kiss on the top of her head. As I walked I would read a heart and eat it, read and ea...

I got all the ingredients I needed to make spaghetti last night -- almost. I got meat, onion, garlic, mushrooms, a red pepper and a can of diced tomatoes. Notice that I didn't get any sauce, which I realized when I was getting ready to start cooking. I didn't feel like running to the store just to get a can of sauce, so I decided to reduce the recipe size and use the can of diced tomatoes as the sauce. So I got out the blender, poured the can of diced tomatoes into it and hit "liquefy." Everything was going just fine until I noticed that some of the liquid was leaking out of the bottom of the pitcher. "Oh, you're bleeding," I said, and started to remove the pitcher from the blender's base. The bottom came off completely covering the blender and the counter with tomato sauce. I cleaned up the mess and ordered a pizza.

The saga of the drive chain continues. I listened to one of my coffee roaster's main drive chains buck and kick for months before finally biting the bullet and getting it replaced. The owner's manual for the machine says that the chain could be lengthened or shortened at any bike shop. I assumed that meant the chain was a standard bicycle chain. Turns out that's not the case. Yesterday while I was preheating the roaster I heard a loud "CLUNK!" and feared the worst, I have had the drive shaft from the flywheel snap off twice before, but that wasn't it, the upper drive chain had slipped off its sprocket. So I threaded it back on, oiled it and returned to pre-heating. A few minutes later I heard another loud "CLUNK!" and ran in to look. The chain had slipped off again and was nowhere to be found. I felt around, poked around, looked... it was as if the chain had never existed. I posted this fact on Facebook and a friend suggested that maybe it had ...