November, 2008 | Funny about Money

Real brown gravy

December 18, 2009November 20, 2008 by funny

Okay, I’m going to tell you how to make the real stuff: turkey gravy the way my great-grandmother used to make it. It was brown, it was intoxicating, and it was delicious.

Back in the Cretaceous, we didn’t worry about things like fat. Calories were known but not a focus of obsession. As a consequence, food tasted pretty darned good. Gravy, in particular, was very good, indeed. Here’s the trick…or rather, the series of tricks:

Reserve the turkey neck and giblets. At the time you’re preparing the turkey for roasting, put the neck and innards in a small pan with a coarsely cut up onion—no need to peel the onion. Just hack it apart and toss it in there. Add water to cover these ingredients. Pour in a little white wine or sherry, if you have some around. Bring just to a boil and then turn to a low simmer.

While the turkey’s cooking, let the turkey parts and onion simmer slowly. Add a little water or wine if the liquid reduces by as much as half. If it seems to be wanting to reduce too much, turn off the heat after two or three hours.

About the time the turkey is ready to come out of the oven, pour the broth through a strainer into a bowl to strain out the turkey meat, bones, and used-up onion. Set aside.

Lift the turkey out of the roasting pan and set it on a carving platter to rest. While someone else is fiddling with the other fixings, inspect the pan drippings. One of these two possibilities will present itself:

1. The drippings may consist mostly of fat; or
2. The drippings may contain a lot of liquid.

If the drippings are mostly liquids, take a big cooking spoon or the baster and skim off a fair amount of the fat floating on the top. Discard this fat (not down the drain in the kitchen sink!). Pour about a half-cup of white wine, sherry, or cool water in a mug or measuring cup and add one or two tablespoons of flour. Beat this up nicely with a fork to get rid of any lumps.

Place the roasting pan over one or two burners on the stove and turn up the heat. Remember to use a hot pad when handling this pan, since it will already be hot as a bygod and you’re about to make it even hotter. Bring the drippings to a fast boil. Add the floured liquid and mix briskly with the fork or a wire whip. The liquid should start to thicken shortly. Add the strained turkey broth as the liquid is thickening. Continue to cook at a fast clip, reducing the liquid substantially—the idea is to concentrate the liquid and all the flavors you’re mixing together. If you can reduce it by about half without leaving too little gravy to go around, do that.

If, on the other hand, the drippings are mostly fat, you’re in luck. This makes a far more delicious and richer brown gravy, IMHO. With your spoon or baster, skim off all but about two tablespoons of the fat. Don’t waste any delicious other liquids in the bottom of the pan. Place the pan over one or two stove burners and turn to medium high. Sprinkle one or two tablespoons of flour over the drippings and stir briskly with a wire whip or wooden spatula. As the flour starts to brown, carefully add the turkey broth. Stir smartly to combine all ingredients, scrape up all the drippings, and avoid lumping. Allow the gravy to reduce a bit—at the very least, it should simmer along for five or ten minutes to mellow the raw flavor of the flour.

Personally, I’m fond of adding a dollop of red wine to this second type of gravy. Be sure the gravy is deep brown, though…otherwise, you can end up with purple gravy. If you have any doubts, use white wine or sherry instead. Or nothing: it’s not really necessary.

To give either of these gravies a little extra polish, add some chopped parsley just before serving.

If you have brined the turkey…don’t even think of trying either of these recipes. Brined turkey exudes salty pan drippings. Way salty. If brining is your preferred approach to making flavorless mass-produced turkeys taste like something, use canned gravy instead; add a little wine to zing it up.

And if your opinion of commercially raised turkey is the same as mine, you’ll be pleased to know that this recipe works just fine with any other holiday roast: a nice standing rib roast, for example, or a leg of lamb. Substitute a combination of wine and canned beef bouillon, beef broth, or chicken broth for the turkey broth.

Are Margaret & Helen for reals?

November 20, 2008 by funny

Dunno about you, but I’ve developed quite a crush on Margaret and Helen, two alleged old bats with strong sentiments about moronic politicians, about the state of the economy, and about life, the universe and all that. I especially enjoyed their pre-election characterization of Sarah Palin, which was somewhat less kind and distinctly more on-target than anything that ever appeared on SNL. Apparently I’m not alone: as of this evening they’ve scored more than a million hits.

The question is…are they real? Are these really two li’l ole ladies given to tooling around on electric scooters and, incidentally, regaling the planet with their trenchant opinions on the lunatics, nincompoops, and would-be dictators who have been in charge of this country lo! these many years? And if they’re not real, well then…who’s behind the blog, anyway?

I hope they are real. They’re my kinda women, if I had the guts to be their kinda woman. But I’ll admit to harboring some doubts. After umpty-gerjillion years teaching English and editing writing from all kinds of scribblers, I’d hazard a guess that they sound more like 28-year-olds than 80-year-olds. The syntax, the vocabulary, the rhythm of the language…none of it rings of 1928.

Right up until my generation (and beyond, really), women with the kind of education and wit reflected in the blog’s writing were powerfully socialized to refrain from vulgarity. Nice girls did not use coarse language. Neither, surprisingly, did many men—certainly not in mixed company. Not until Vietnam radicalized us and the women’s liberation movement oversensitized us to the restrictions that bound us to the pedestal did women begin to use the f-word, or even the s-word or the p-word or any other of those words. It just wasn’t done. You can be sure my mother would have thought all sorts of “words” about the incumbents, but even more surely, she wouldn’t have said them. And god forfend that she should put them in writing!

That kind of training is not easily overcome.

Hilariously typical, for example, is this passage, where the conversation turns to bail-outs:

So many of you kept wanting us to talk about Sarah Palin. Sorry, but I have tuned her out. If I want to hear an ass talk I can just ask Harold to pass gas. And speaking of gas, several of you asked about the Auto Industry Bailout. At first we thought “How Boring” but then Harold showed me his credit card bill from Exxon and that got us going…

But just when you’re thinking “naahhh! The grandson’s writing it. This is the language and the humor of a 28-year-old guy of the sort who sits in front of the computer a lot,” ZAP! Up pops something unmistakably produced by a female mind of a certain age:

Life is short. You realize that even more when you are old. I have said before that in dog years I am already dead. So each morning when I wake up there is a brief moment until I realize that I still need my glasses to see the clock before realizingI must still be in this old body of mine… Then I turn and put a mirror under Harold’s nose to determine ifI still need to put on my make-up and do my hair.

Even a passage or two in the Bitch Palin post can ring of the mature voice:

I’m old enough toremember the Republican party of Barry Goldwater – when the party stood for fiscal responsibility, small government and personal freedoms. I remember whenI couldtalk withfriends about politicsand just agree to disagree. And then religious nut cases decided that if you didn’t agree with them you were immoral.So they went and elected George Bush President so he couldtake the Republican Party from being a party full of respectable people to a party filled with asses, jackasses and yes – bitches like Sarah Palin.

Goldwater himself famously used the a** word in reference to the neocons, and if he were alive today I’m sure he’d be using it and other choice expressions…dare we say it?…liberally. And I do know one woman pushing 75 who has been heard using plenty of strong language about our soon-to-be former leadership. One. A wild one, she.

Here we have two wild hares. Is that credible? What do you think? Are they real or not?

My money’s on the grandson. But my heart is with Margaret and Helen.

Fast & easy one-dish meal…

December 6, 2011November 19, 2008 by funny

…in which The Human nabs some of Little Dog’s food and turns it into dinner.

Don’t panic! As some of you know, dog food around here is really human food. We’re still working on the mound of hamburger we got for $1.72 a pound when the Human had an on-sale roast ground at the butcher counter.

Half starved (having consumed one piece of cheese and a handful of blueberries all day long), I didn’t want to wait while food defrosted and the charcoal caught and on & on.

Little Dog needed some rice, she having consumed the leftover potatoes from two nights ago. And some meat: defrosted burger was waiting to be cooked. Since I had to cook the beef and the rice anyway, here’s what I came up with by way of a fine dinner shortcut:

You need:
-As much hamburger as needed for the number of humans on hand
-Ditto, cooked rice or macaroni or potatoes
-A couple cloves of garlic, chopped
-A handful of fresh spinach, chard, or any other stir-fryable or frozen vegetable
-A couple of green onions, chopped
-A tomato or two, cut up
-A small handful of pecans or walnuts
-Some honey
-A little olive oil
-Cinnamon
-Salt and pepper

My hamburger was already cooked, because you can’t feed a dog garlic and onions. Bad garlic, bad onions! But if I were going to fix this for humans only, here’s how I’d combine the ingredients above:

Skim the bottom of a frying pan with a little olive oil. Over medium heat, cook the garlic and the nuts briefly—don’t let the garlic scorch. Turn up the heat a bit and add the meat. Stir until the meat cooks through. While the meat is cooking, add a little honey (oh, a tablespoon or so), a bit of cinnamon (turn the grinder a few times, or use about 1/8 to 1/4 tsp.), and salt & pepper to taste. When the meat is cooked, add the spinach and green onion and stir around till the leaf vegetable is appropriately limp. Then add the tomato. Toss gently to heat through.

Serve this slumgullion over rice, noodles, macaroni, or potatoes. Very good. Very fast.

Foreclosure: Not all bad

November 19, 2008 by funny

Yesterday as I was chatting with the tile guy at the former home of Dave’s Used Car Lot, Marina, and Weed Arboretum (recently foreclosed upon, bought out of auction for $162,500, and resold to a flipper for $192,500), up comes a perky blonde Realtor. She was meeting a buyer there to eyeball the place.

Asked what they hope to get for the place, she showed me a listing sheet: $269,900.

Well. That’s not a disaster, all things considered: if they get $260,000 for it, the value of my house (relatively) at least will not drop below what I paid for it four years ago. My place certainly won’t sell for anything near $300,000 anytime soon (it was valued as high as a giddy $375,000 during the bubble), but at least I’m not going to go broke. Yet.

Really, as long as the new resident is not another biker, another furniture-flinging berserker, or another slob, the trade-off will be worth it. Cleaning up that pigpen across the street transforms this part of the neighborhood. If the place stays halfway decent, I can get rid of some more of the shrubbery designed to screen my front windows from the view of Dave’s hovel, which will improve the looks of my place considerably. And over time, without the drag of that run-down property, values should improve. If nothing else, at least the street is now a more pleasant place to live!

Is frugality unAmerican?

May 14, 2009November 17, 2008 by funny

One narrative subplot in the ever-escalating media buzz over the economy is that the new fad for frugality, for paying off debts, and for living within one’s means is bad for America and bad for the global economy. When people stop buying, the story goes, retailers stop selling, lenders stop lending, importers stop importing, and manufacturers stop manufacturing. All the worthies in these sectors then close stores, go belly-up, and lay off employees, who are forced to behave frugally, pay off their debts, and live within their means, causing more retailers to stop retailing, more lenders to stop lending, more importers…and so on to infinity.

So it is that seedy characters like you and me, eccentrics who subscribe to the wacky theory that we should spend no more than we earn, refrain from buying every piece of junk set under our noses, and maybe even put some of what we earn into savings, are responsible for bringing this country to the brink of depression.

Yes. That’s you and me, fellow PF blogger: our little terrorist coterie has darn near brought about THE FALL OF THE AMERICAN EMPIRE! Worse! THE COLLAPSE OF THE ENTIRE PLANET’S ECONOMY!

Think of that.

Well, I am thinking of that. And I think not.

The way I see this, we’ve arrived in our present predicament not because consumers stopped spending but because they spent so much, so profligately, and so stupidly. Consider: If over the past two decades 80 percent (say) of Americans had been living within their means—if they had been educated adequately on personal finance matters and understood the basics of lending, saving, budgeting, and investing—we would not be in the mess we’re in.

Most Americans, having navigated clear of the shoals of unmanageable debt, would have plenty of money to spend on the things they need and—yes!—want.
Few people would have been naïve enough to get themselves into booby-trapped mortgages for absurd amounts of money that King Croesus himself couldn’t afford.
Most people would have had a fair idea of what a house is really worth. Because the public in general would have resisted buying at absurdly inflated prices, real estate prices would never have blown out of control, and so no housing crisis would have occurred.
Retailers would still be selling products at a steady pace.
Manufacturers would still be making products at a steady pace.
Layoffs would not be occurring.
The President of the United States would never have thought of responding to the horror of 9-11 by telling Americans to go out and spend themselves silly. (Who knows? Maybe his speechwriters would have been forced to come up with something more worthy of a world leader, like “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”)

Nope. We ants are not responsible for the collapse of the economy, nor are we the ones who are digging its grave. The grasshoppers did it. The grasshoppers and all the greedy little critters who got rich off them.

The newfound penchant for frugality that the newspapers and broadcasters tell us is now the hot fashion will no doubt pass. But if it doesn’t, that won’t be a bad thing. We will have hard times—we’re going to have hard times whether we all go out and load up our credit cards or not. But if members of the American public learn to get a grip on their spending and figure out how to manage their money so they can have what they want without getting themselves over their heads in debt (or if, more amazing still, they figure out what’s really important in life), in the long run the economy will be healthier and stronger. And the world will be a better place.