Fight 4 Taste

It was late June 1984. I had not seen my father for 4 years until yesterday when I drove the 2279 miles from Connecticut to Port Aransas Texas. We met Captain Rick Gaston at Woody's Boat Basin.  His Charter Boat, the Orca had just arrived.  Word was that Rick had a large Tarpon on a line that he was fighting to land. They all said it was unusual for Rick to call anything in. He was not a man to cry wolf. When I met Rick he was a small guy with a big personality. Standard 1984 South Texas look. Jeans t shirt ball cap with wrap around sunglasses on. Rick did not come back with a tarpon but he did have a story about how a girl jumped out of the boat because he pulled the shark into the boat and it was flipping around. He told us how he's very excitedly explained to her that there were a whole heck of a lot more of them in the water than there was in the boat. Rick filleted a shark right there on the dock for us and we took it home and hence my first shark McNuggets experience hap...

Wandering around the kitchen looking for something to marinade with. Teryaki, Soy Sauce, Liquid Hickory Smoke, Serrachi, Brown Sugar, Pepper, Olive Oil, Lemon Juice, Brown Malt Vinegar, Nutmeg. It's got to be good! I'll Let you know later. Just put it on the racks...

Flank Steak Fajitas Southwest Egg Benedict Wraps Braised Chicken Thighs-Jacob Burton's Death Row Meal Tryout Homemade Pesto Steamed/Roasted Chicken and Leaks

In 1991, I lived in a truck in the deserts of Saudi Arabi, Iraq and Kuwait.  All we had to eat was MRE's and a few other things that came in cans and packages.  It was possible to combine the individual components and come up with something edible.  Once the wiring is there, you sort of keep thinking of that after that phase is done.  Today there are so many above average things you can do to make things taste great on the fly.  I would not consider them as a way of life, but it's good to know how to do it. When I was a commercial truck driver, I hated the food that was available on the road.  Any place you could park a 70 foot long tractor/trailer meant fast, greasy and tasteless food worthy of having your brain removed and strapping on a feed bag to bear it.  I decided to pick up a Burton Stove to Go down in North Carolina one Friday night.  There are cook books that drivers have written for this, but I found that common sense questions such as...

  Anyone that knows me knows that I love the back to basics practicallity of living.  I have been making beef jerky since 1992.  For nearly 10 years now I have been taking dehydrating to all new levels.  Today my cupboard is full of canning jars with dried vegatables that I dried when I determined that I would not be able to use before they would go bad.  At first, the did just sit there and make me feel smart for doing it.  But let's face it, when you see that same jar untouched for 2 years you realize that perhaps, I am supposed to do something more with these.  I have been experimenting with using these goods and have been pleasantly surprised with their taste texture and usefulness.  More about that later.  So you cannot be surfing the net in this subject without inadvertantly colliding with other drying methods.  The one that really intrigued me is South African Biltong.   Wikipedia defines Biltong as: Biltong is a...

Last night we did took a culinary journey to Africa.  This was done because despite the Internet and Kindle and iPhones etc, we still go to the library.  (We do not have iPhones or a Kindle, but I do have a disconnected cell pone that I carry as a stopwatch, flashlight and iPod, but that's not important right now). There is nothing like finding a book at the library and embarking on the tactile journey into enlightenment.  This is even better when it involves cooking.  My Wife Donna found the book Passport on a Plate by Diane Simone Vezza.  A Round-the-World cookbook for children.  My son's love to cook, create and generally make huge messes in the kitchen, just like me. Donna and Liam decided to chose African food last night.  Three recipes in all.  The first was luku (Chicken Stew)  It is an Ethiopian Dish.  I am not going to go into detail since Liam is going to be blogging about this himself.  This is a very inexpensive dish to...