Hillbilly Delight
This is a controversial recipe. The essential sauce is not omething made, but supplied. It is a Velveeta-based sauce. Again, if you are looking for a healthful meal for your family this is not it. It is a variation on Cheeseburger Macaroni.
For dinner use one Family Size Velveeta Shells & Cheese Dinner, for pot luck use two.
In pot-luck quantities, prepare a pound of pork breakfast sausage, and a pound of ground turkey. In dinner quantities, a pound of ground beef may be used. You may dice the sausage for easier handling. Prepare the sausage first, then turkey in the skillet liquor.
With your turkey or ground beef, wilt some chopped onion and maybe some garlic. Feel free to use garlic or onion powder.
Prepare the Velveeta S&C according to package directions, although you may not want to blend the pasta with the cheese just yet. You may need a rubber scraper to salvage all of the sauce. Be certain to let the sauce liquefy before blending with other ingredients.
Just dump everything in a particularly big bowl and blend thoroughly. You may garnish with some chopped scallions.
Whatever is within this dish which may be confused with nutrition, is more than offset by copious amounts of chemicals and good old fat. Boy, is this good. It’s totally wrong, and my default pot luck offering.
This comes to mind after seeing a box dinner which promises pretty much the same thing, and seeing frozen variations for months. The box dinner instructions were more complicated than this.
Quasi-Cincinnati Coneys
If you are more than a few hundred miles away from the Queen City, you cannot get proper Cincinnati Chili, aside from parts of Florida or if you want to spend a fortune on shipping, or if you actually know the secrets of its preparation. Nonetheless, a very reasonable approximation can be created from items available at the typical North American grocery.
Honestly, the only thing really missing is the chili itself. If you so much as reach for that can of “chilidog sauce” I will stab you with this fork. It is easy to go overboard on “quality”, but premium ingredients just won’t get you where you need to go. If you are looking for a healthful meal for your family, this is the wrong place.
To prepare eight sandwiches which are pretty much proper Coneys:
- Start with a package of eight wieners, ideally of a store brand or common discount brand. If in doubt get the second cheapest wieners available at your store. If you cannot find wieners, frankfurters or even hot dogs may be substituted.
- Be sure to get the package of eight cheap, white “hot dog buns”. Store brand or your local white-bread brand is appropriate. This is where it is very easy to go wrong. Nicer buns or, god forbid, some kind of roll are inauthentic and may convey unwanted texture and flavor.
- A small onion or proportion of a larger onion chopped into pinky-nail sized pieces. Not julienne, not minced, but chopped. White, yellow or red onion is acceptable. There are no green onions; you are thinking of scallions. I like the red, but yellow transports me back to those days I don’t actually remember from my youth.
- One and only one condiment shall be tolerated on coneys: brown mustard. You are expected to use whatever brown mustard you have inventoried. The authentic article is Gulden’s Spicy Brown Mustard. You don’t need much.
- Two cups of mild cheddar cheese, shredded. Yes, mild. Not sharp. Not Mexican-blend cheese. Not colby jack cheese. Mild cheddar.
- This is the hard part, for me. Just get a 14-16 oz can of a national or regional brand chili. It must not have beans. It shall not be chilidog sauce. Hormel and Wolf Brand brand have been used with excellent results. If you knew where to get proper Cincinnati chili you wouldn’t be reading this. Do not get the hot or spicy varieties.
Just know that this is not so much a recipe as it is assembly instructions. It scales beautifully.
In a tiny pot warm the chili over a low flame, covered. Or you could just nuke it to serving temperature.
Fill a covered pot half way with not more than 2 qt of water. Less is always better. Heat to a rolling boil. Slice open the pack of sausages and dump them into the water with all of the fluid or brine or whatever that stuff is. Cover and lower heat to simmer for twelve-to-fifteen minutes. You want the sausages to plump, but not split.
While all of that happens, chop your onion.
Then prep your buns by opening and adding a pencil-lead thick strip of mustard. You may schmear a similar quantity if you do not have squeeze-bottle mustard.
If you have purchased shredded cheese, open the packet and pull the shreds apart until the cheese is at least double its packed volume. Cheese should be very loose, which makes for a dramatic presentation. Let the cheese achieve something close to room temperature.
To each prepped bun add in this order: a wiener, three tablespoons of chili, enough onion that you get six-to-ten bits in each bite, and cover with cheese. Traditionally, the cheese should be at least two-inches high, but very, very loose. The key to this is to have a little bit too much of everything.
The heat of the ingredients will “steam” the bun and warm the cheese to a desirable temperature. Your coneys should sit for several minutes before serving.
Serve with beer, boxed red wine or milkshakes, or you know whatever.
Recommended sides include creamy cole slaw, seasoned or not fries, baked beans, mustard potato salad, onion rings, or more coneys.
On the Ford Crown Victoria
At 12:25 PM (16:25 UTC), 15 September 2011, what Ryan Paradis calls The Last American Car, the Ford Crown Victoria, ended production at Ford St. Thomas Assembly, Ontario. At least five more were remaining on the line when unspecified parts ran out. Demand is such, Ford may deliver these cars without completing them. Those cars may be completed by final purchasers from the comprehensive collection of aftermarket parts. St. Thomas is scheduled to close after forty-four years of service by CAW local 1520.
For those of you on other continents, this is the quintessential North American police car and taxi. You see them in all the movies. It’s distinctive silhouette has come to define government security forces not unlike the Volga or Wartburg in other places and times. This car has been known in its life as:
- 1979 Ford LTD
- 1983 Ford LTD Crown Victoria, when the LTD name was moved to a radically restyled update to the Ford Fairmont
- 1992 Ford Crown Victoria
- 2007 Ford Crown Victoria was the last model year available to the general public.
Despair not for this car remains available as a used car from the usual suspects, and from specialty retailers who deal in this model. Most Vickies were purchased in the P71 package for police duty, then retired to another life in taxi service. Among the features of the car is its ability to be repeatedly beaten back in shape and otherwise rebuilt.
A few taxi services adopted hybrid cars in hopes of averting the CV’s primary failing: dismal fuel economy. The maintenance required to keep a modern vehicle on the road is so expensive, the old Panther was cheaper to operate even with one-third the fuel economy. The taxi-service vehicle Ford provides today is a variation of the Transit Connect van.
Take a look at the interior and the trunk. It is spacious, but then look in the Ford Fusion, a modern monocoque two classes below. The Fusion is really about the same, except the trunk is larger. Monocoques experience more road noise than heavier, isolated body-on-frame vehicles but awareness of the source of these vibrations and clever technolog mitigate the issue significantly. The present Taurus is actually larger than the CV inside in every dimension, but with a 20% improvement in fuel economy.
Twenty-percent? Really? That’s it? [unnecessary profanity] it, I’m getting a P71.
Wait. No. The world is moving on. You can get a bigger car, where it counts, with less cost all around. Unless you wreck it. The old-tech V8 is readily outdone by a modern six, and it creaks like an old house. It has taken the Americans long enough to work out a proper car, they may as well make the most of it. It’s not like Americans built the first production monocoque automobile or anything.
Goodbye old man. You’ve served well.
Dinner Diaries: Cheap but good
Plausible dining options when dining in Austin, Texas. The Barton Springs Road tourist traps near Zilker Park are cute, but not really good. If you’re downtown, you’re on your own. Everybody seems to just grab a sandwich at the Whole Foods cafe. Read more…
Dinner Diaries
Because when I go out, I don’t always have a Burger. The first few of these are just going to be running of the mouth. If they catch on, I’ll copypaste to Yelp or something. On my mind:
- Jim’s
- Quality Seafood
- Madam Mam’s
- Pho Thai Phun
- Dynasty Buffet
- Buffet Palace
- Cannoli Joe’s
- Thundercloud Subs, who isn’t quite dinner but isn’t Hamburgers either
All of these are positive reviews. I’m going to hold back on the negative reviews for a while. If you are a visitor to Austin and find this, the restaurants with insane praise on Yelp et al are crap. It’s the little holes, and weird regional chains, for the most part, where the good food may be found.
While I’m here if you crave proper donuts in Austin go either to Shipley’s two locations, the one and only Mrs. Johnson’s or the chain named after that location’s neighborhood followed by Donut in red sanserif over the door. (South Lamar Donut, Airport Donut, First St. Donut, etc.) No web site or anything but you’ll see them around.
What I’m not blogging about.
- Positive review of Jack in the Box’s All-American Jack, which is not the Bonus Jack with another name.
- Scrutiny of Austin and its municipal practices. In the way the UT district was a glut of traffic and chaos to avoid, now the much larger “Central Austin” or where the tax money goes is pretty much the same thing.
- An analysis of the local transit authority and their ongoing struggle to provide an essential service in this area which defines sprawl. On the other hand, the service is now “not especially good”. This is an improvement over their 2000 rating of “why do you even bother.”
- It is very hot here. The most days over 100 on record as of tomorrow (23/08). No measurable rain since late June and .02 inches then. We don’t even have dew.
- Melanee is in the midst of a medication change and is very sick. There is nothing I can do.
- Rant about “metabolic syndrome”, my thirty-year struggle with same, and what I do to control it in the absence of formal medical care. This would include a mention of compulsive milk drinking which defined my twenties, and my previous use of pastry as an intoxicant.
- A thought piece on the nature of the Hamburger Diaries and my weight struggles. A hamburger is an indulgence for me, despite my disdain for gourmet or otherwise pretentious and conceptually antithetical variations.
- Fictional obituaries, which serve solely to expunge some of my sillier ideas which have no proper context.
- I am not writing much of anything including the radio-play adaptation of what is now called “An Angry Little Christmas”. I do not know how a “Christmas special” based on the idea that following materialism’s victory over faith, the day is pretty much a generally agreed upon day off.
- I want to make dumb movies again, but simply cannot make the time.
Hamburger Diaries: Culver’s
When I saw the sign for Culver’s go up all those years ago, I wondered what a frozen-custard butterburger actually was. It was years before I actually bothered to visit. You probably know the butterburger and frozen custard are wholly separate entities.
Last weekend my favorite conspirator joined me on a visit to the first Culver’s in a state not contiguous to their native Wisconsin. This restaurant opened in 1997 and was not especially inconvenient for me. Somehow this was my second visit in fourteen years.
I have spent a week mulling it over. My feeling about Culver’s is not as negative as the only things I can think to say about it. Due to circumstances with regard to my health, I may not have enjoyed this as much as I possible.
The decor is somewhere between a “family restaurant” and “quick service”. The general theme is a clean white and blue theme with lots of light wood accents …
Oh fuck it.
My companion ordered first and I had to find another cashier to take my order. This is the first time, not only in the Diaries but in my life, I had to make an effort to place an order at a quick-service restaurant.
I was eventually served a generous boat of high-school-cafeteria crinkle-cut fries, a half-pound burger which tasted like it was dressed with especially unspicy cole slaw, the bun or “butter” element of the butter burger came from the grocery down the street, and the butter was not evident. The beef may have been “never frozen” but didn’t taste of much. I opted for chili on my fries and it was bottled smoked to the point of befuddlement. The toppings, including the flavorless “mild cheddar” cheese, was colder than the drinks.
If this is Wisconsin dairy, no wonder both California and Texas are producing more dairy products these days.
My beloved got the meat and meat with meat sandwich which was novel enough but who cares. No toppings at all. Just meat blander than what comes out of those microwaveable packs at the grocery, with a bun which may or may not have been buttered.
No, I don’t remember what either sandwich was named. I care that much.
The fries at the Pleasure Ridge Park High School cafeteria were similar and just as good. This is not praise for either institution. The shtick here is that you order at a counter and they bring your food to you. The staff appears to wish they did not have to be bothered.
We returned for desserts. My beloved’s “Cement Mixer” (mint, marshmallow fluff and chocolate chips) was in fact quite brilliant. My chocolate malt was pretty good despite being too thick to drink through a straw and served in the wrong container. An hour later, the malt was quite good as it could be consumed and you could actually experience the malt which was concentrated on the bottom of the sundae cup. When you could taste the ingredients it was quite good.
The desserts would have been the highlight, however, this meal has surpassed Five Guys as the most expensive meal thus far recorded in the Hamburger Diaries. Remember, this included desserts, but nonetheless achieved a ticket close to $27. We should have just gone to Buffet Palace, Five Guys or even P.Terry’s just down the street. This experience is not only not worth almost thirty bucks, it feels like a kind of punishment for not attending the tired and true.
On American cars, at least this quarter
The convo on Twitter goes as follows:
GT: Did the Chevy Volt not sell to Americans because their target demographic grew up in a world where you didn’t buy American-made cars? Yes.
AS: Are you certain its not because it is a $40K Cruze styled like a Wal-Mart stereo?
GT: I have yet to see anything environmentally friendly that has looked ‘hot.’ I have read that’s not what greens are looking for.
First of all, I actually found myself at a Walmart [sic] this weekend and took a moment to actually look at the radios and such on offer. I was mistaken in my assumption that these noise machines were as obnoxiously and needlessly decorated as they were in the 1980s and 1990s. They tend to be excessively plain, and very few. The store offered only one AM-FM radio and it was a particularly stark $19 Emerson-branded unit which would be fully recognizable if I took it back to 1965. I suspect this is because the folks who are shopping for a radio today are primarily interested in being able to read the analog dial without their reading glasses.
What I intended to imply about the Chevrolet Volt was not that it was “hot” and therefore desirable, but rather that it was needlessly decorated and, not only in this way, unappealing to the core demographic of thirty-to-fifty-something tech weirdos. The real killer was the story going around soon after the first retail deliveries which pretty much read:
You know that cool thing we said this car would do that makes it so different from the Prius? Uh, yeah. It doesn’t actually do that.
You also have the issue of having to buy one from a Chevrolet dealer.
About the target demographic not buying American cars: Now that Honda is having parts-supply issues, and Toyota has those issues and the lingering suspicion regarding its throttle control, someone had to be a winner for the heart and mind of Joe Golfer. Joe Sixpack isn’t in the market for a new car this decade. The winners are Hyundai, not really a surprise with the Sonata being the best regarded car in its class, and Ford. I know Ford isn’t doing well with the MySync issues, but the rest of the car is brilliant. This isn’t just me saying, they are moving all the Fusions and Fiestas they can ship. I don’t know what’s up with the Focus.
Around here, I don’t see many Fiestas but Austin is all about the a and c segments. Every other car is a Civic, Corolla, Cavalier [sic] and 20% of all the Fiat 500s sold so far have been delivered through Maxwell’s Fiat of Austin (which is in a mall, by the way). I’ve seen more Cinquecentos on the road than Volts by a couple of decimal points. Then again, Austin was crawling with Smarts until the most beloved smart center in North America had its ticket pulled. I can’t imagine where they went.
As a noted apologist for American cars, I remain shocked Ford is getting all this business. The car business is really screwed up right now, with values all over the place and trade-in value often being more than private sale value. Some new cars are selling for less than the “value” of a same-model three-year-old used. Nobody knows what’s doing, least of all me. If I had an alternative I’d seriously consider selling the $5500 Corolla I bought for the $8200 it is now “worth”.
In this madcap environment Ford, Hyundai and Nissan, as of last month, are doing monster business. The target demos are not categorically neglecting American cars, as Ford is in there someplace. GM is another matter. I’d like to just look over a Volt, but I feel like I need a shower just driving by a Chevy store.
Part of a little dog’s tale
Last night as I was returning from dinner break, the anticipated gathering of smokers conscientiously fifteen feet away from the entrance to the plant, appeared to be focused upon something. It was not unlike a large group of people watching television. In the midst of the arc was some kind of animal. I presumed, at first, a wild animal of some kind because no one was reaching in to touch it, although most bothered to mention how cute it is.
I approached the inner layer and found a dog. She looked mostly like a beagle, although with deep-brown fur and a white diamond on her chest, but much smaller. In better times she probably would be a 8-to-10 pound dog, but was so ravaged she could be no more than 5 lb. The dog appeared to have a particularly serious case of mange. The top of her head, the fronts of her legs, large spots on her torso. Scratching had led to minor scabbing.
I knelt to investigate. She rushed toward me. Unlike everyone else I could not resist touching her. Yes, I know the protocol. She’s full grown. She wears a higher-end black nylon collar, like the $10 one from Petco rather than the $3 from Wal-Mart, but it was filthy and in poor condition. Somebody loved this dog once.
I didn’t spend much time as work was calling, but I did the check for tags and a superficial check for injuries. No tags. She was so sweet, I knew she was a couple of courses of selamectin and a few cans of Iams away from being a wonderful companion for somebody, but not me. I mean, Bob is categorically afraid of dogs. I now live in a cat-only building. I just got here …
Walking onto the floor, I bugged the guys in my department. “Gentlemen, who needs a dog?”
One of the guys was thinking about it, until he saw her poor condition. This is exactly the opposite of my reaction. I could not resist putting on a pair of nitrile gloves and spending a couple of minutes with her every half hour of so for the remaining hours of my shift.
I had to do something. It got to the point that folks walking through my department would remind me, “Hey Stan! Your dog is still out there.” I googled up the number for a 24-hour vet not too far away. The essence of the conversation was: “Just bring her in, we’ll take care of her.” They, of course, encouraged me to “take responsibility” and properly adopt her. It was tempting, despite my circumstances. This includes, as I like to say: I’m bi but I prefer cats.
One of the crew gave her the remnants of a McDonald’s cheeseburger. Not my first choice, but obviously enough to keep her hanging around. The lid of a large container was adapted to a water bowl. The last couple of visits she was so excited to find a kind hand she dripped a little urine. I could have been more clever about not getting her to follow me into the building, but this was somehow achieved in a series of Chaplinesque maneuvers.
At the appointed hour I grabbed a paper box, we have many laying around, stuffed it with craft paper and she readily, almost eagerly, let me put her in the box and place the lid on top.
I drove to Austin Vet Care on N. Lamar and following a prolonged sequence of her drinking water out of a cup while we waited, and my attempt to feed her a biscuit from the provided tin in the waiting area. She was turned over to the authorities.
Among the reasons she did not have much interest in the biscuit, or the half-Burger, was that in the clear light of the vet’s office she revealed no teeth in her lower jaw. The mange was even worse than was apparent in the dim light of the plant exterior. The Doc saw some inflamed skin and suspected her condition was exacerbated by sunburn. She almost certainly has been on her own for weeks. The Doc took none of my information. He stated twice that she was a puppy, although to my amateur eyes appeared full grown but tiny.
She would almost certainly be adopted once brought back to health, a process which would start immediately, and sent through the Austin Animal Center, which we both still called “Town Lake”.
Bob is due for his monthly selamectin in a couple of days, but got it early this morning as a precaution, and that was that. Well, as of 4:40 in the morning my car still smells of filthy dog. I did what I was supposed to do. Why do I feel guilty?
