signs and omens part 1

The first news story that popped on to the screen when I turned on the television this morning was about a young mother in Sacramento CA who found the holy visage of Jesus staring back at her from the surface of the burrito she'd just cooked.*

I maintain that it is no mere coincidence that Jesus would choose Mexican food as his Sacred Venue. So far this makes two Holy Burritoes found this year, and if we count the wrapping separately, five Sacred Tortillas. That I know of. Who knows how many others have gone unheralded, eaten in the hunger of the moment, blessing the intestines of the faithful and the apostate alike????

In humble acknowledgement of this miraculous event I am going to grab my nickles and my Metformin and head down to El Nopal for lunch. This is clearly the Chosen Food. And who knows, perhaps even my Lourdes. I will leave my lancet and test strips outside the door of the lounge and go forth rejoicing.

Other than missing my favorite resteraunt (where I was putting their kids through college), I'm finding diabetes more a minor irritation than anything else, and that's only when it happens to cross my mind. I've lost weight, changed my eating habits and made better food choices, and it's been no great strain. I think having been a vegetarian hippie child helped because I already know how to 'do' healthy. Now it's just a question of finding a happy medium between 'reasonably tasty and low in dietary sugars' and healthy.

So what am I reading for nonfiction lately? A book on how to recreate the great mother sauces of French haute cuisine in the home kitchen. Yes, I saw the title ('The Sauciers' Apprentice'...oh, ha! so laugh the face of me!) on a shelf at a garage sale and dove on that action like a fullback. Outta my way bitches.

The first thing the author wants you to do is order 30 gallon stockpot with a tap from Williams Sonoma.

The next, cultivate a smoochy relationship with your local butcher. Now sadly enough, or fortuituously enough; however you want to view it, I already am on amiable terms with the man. Hint**: most men, you tell them they have beautiful meat? They'll view you in all future dealings with a friendlier eye. Yes I honestly said that to the guy. In the spirit of the moment, now, come on. I realized how it sounded about halfway home.

So. Anyway. Next? Invest in ungodly amounts of animal flesh. Beefy Deathberg? Check.

Finally, devote an entire weekend to simmering and skimming. Not a problem. Thats already part of my routine. Seriously, I take a weekend out every month or so and put up all my stocks, my salsas, etc soups and what have you to freeze.

I have most of the requirements already in place; but I must tell you that I will be rat fucked before I play around around with no huge ass stockpot. Never mind the expense; I'd have to stand on a stepstool to stir the thing. There's just no way I want something like that in my kitchen full of hot liquid, too heavy to lift.

You can tell I'm thinking about this, though, can't you. Yeah. 'Well, I could do it in the summer, outside, on a gas ring. Oo, better yet, I could pick up one of those big gas-fired beach boilers at a yard sale! I'm always running into those! And set up on the deck! And run a stock line from the kitchen out through the utility room...yeah...the washer and dryer are work height....I have good knives...'

Making a brown stock is only part un. Part deux involves all the extra flapulation of reducing it down to a demiglace, which is what I'd be doing ideally.
But hey! We'll be bathing in Bourguignonne for the rest of the year! And that doesn't sound like such a bad thing at all.

Update:
OH MY GOD ITS LIKE AN OMEN.
Just as I was getting up to go down to El Nopal? At that very instant? My Yummy Biker came home. Do you know what he had?
Never mind what he had.

Fine, he had a burrito por moi.
An UNSOLICITED BURRITO.

I must meditate, and pray.




*Q13 Fox News Seattle, Bill Wixie reporting, Tuesday October 17.

** I'm assuming the butcher is male here. It seems to be a standard. Proceed with caution. Straight ladies and men with fully functioning gaydar only. Otherwise, guys, I hope I don't have to tell you that if you go up to an American straight man who can bust down a hanging beef in under three minutes? Using only a knife and a steel? And drop the 'beautiful meat' line on him? Probably no.