every time i make carnitas, it seems i blend several recipes. in this case, added some sugar and spice. also used beer instead of the mexican coke since i, you know, didn’t have any available. let’s just say the pig didn’t mind!
did i mention the pig? four pounds of pork shoulder… (well, that’s actually five pounds; there’s a bound in the freezer waiting for another day).
also added half an onion. brought the whole thing to a boil, simmered for two hours, then reduced it to a heavenly brown mess!
we have tacos! can’t wait to do it again, but have enough leftovers to last quite awhile. in the meantime, i have a new favorite food blog to read for inspiration! now, i too can say, i made that!
haven’t tried making tortillas yet, but as soon as i find a source for freshly rendered lard, look out!
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I went to see the Kenny Garrett Quartet at Yoshi’s – Oakland last night (02/08/2011). What a great concert! They came out on fire, so much so I couldn’t imagine how they could keep it up! During the 1:48 set, they performed the five songs plus a soprano/piano medley (which seemed to demonstrate we were indeed listening to the REAL Kenny G).
I can only imagine this is what it must have been like to see the John Coltrane Quartet (just a little before my time).
The best news? You too can watch and listen to this performance:
i love this album, especially the title track and “everything happens to me.” that sentiment, that we should always say goodbye, is very powerful, indeed.
i attended a charlie haden master class around the time this came out. very powerful stuff. his advice to musicians: “risk your life for every note” and “play every note as if it’s your last.” still working on understanding that. and fixing to get ready to start thinking about possibly one day maybe coming close to approaching that ideal.
when i was a kid visiting my great-grandmother in savannah, ga, she asked me what i’d like for dinner. my response? “fried chicken!” that afternoon, she went into the backyard and killed my favorite chicken. she plucked the feathers, cut, cleaned and fried that bird.
for dinner, i ate biscuits. a lot of them. the beginning of a life-long love affair. those biscuits were the best i’ve ever had, but let the record show i also had great biscuits growing up in, yes, newark, nj.
btw, i still love fried chicken. as long as the chicken comes from the store…
In wine, as in coffee, we can talk about the soil and growing conditions of the grapes or beans and how that affects the end product. But with biscuits, there are so many variables — the butter, the flour, the baking powder and the buttermilk — you can’t explicitly tie the biscuits to a place. For all you know that baking powder came from Newark, New Jersey.
I’ve heard some criticism of the memorial as being too upbeat, too much like a political or pep rally. What that reminds me of is a funeral I attended several years ago. The minister pointed down at the casket and said:
She’s dead. This funeral is not for her. Funerals are for the living!
It was kind of shocking at the time, but it explains the need to help us heal and keep moving forward in the face of immeasurable loss and sadness and pain. All I can think right now is, “Amen!”
January 12th 2010 Conan O’Brien Says He Won’t Do ‘Tonight Show’ Following Leno on twitter, conan is god. everyone loves this statement. everyone except, that is, me. conan seems high-minded, resolute, principled. except he's sticking the shiv into leno. twisting it. drawing blood. hitting bone.simply publishing this ("people of the world") is a power play. he steals the ground from leno, casting him as the villain. casts his team against leno's. blames leno more than nbc.leno is in an untenable position. he can't win the p.r. game against conan at this point. or if he can, i'm not sure how he does it. nbc if frakked. otoh this is all their doing. they had choices to make and they tried to avoid them. choices have consequences. by not choosing, they've damaged leno, conan, fallon, and the tonight show franchise. which, was, of course, a choice, albeit a demonstrably bad one.
