JEL

my german grandmother taught me around age 10........ that was almost 40 years ago.... we started with bacon/drippings/flour/milk/salt........ why do people struggle so much with the creation of a roux/stew/gravy, etc.....

manly man food, like pickled herring, and limburgher cheese..... cigars........ bourbon.... anything so that when the guys go home, their wives know they've been to a card game and not a strip joint..... cold cuts, kielbasa, stuff you can put on a cracker and a cocktail napkin w/out needing a plate, things you can eat while playing a hand...... freshen your drink, get a cold beer and throw down a few shrimp w/ some really hot cocktail sauce....... imagine, no girls allowed, just the guys playing cards and telling decadent stories from their youth......

so, you draw the line @ wine........ everyone has a stopping point........ burgers are an illustration...... what we're after is the truth..........

the time of my meals isn't affected as much as the size of them.... when the weather cools off i eat much more food during the day... evening meals are very light.... summer is just the opposite......

i'll try to be more specific... grilled burgers for food appreciating friends/family..... home ground burger, pork and beef, great rolls from the bakery, blue cheese, gruyere, best tomatoes available, deck it all out with awesome condiments, pickles, all the coolest stuff you can find..have a blast... grilled burgers for others.... hamburger from the store, shitty buns, kraft cheese slices, vlasic pickles, chips, canned beans(no bacon)......can still have a good time, just didn't worry about feeding these folks well, because multiple efforts in the past have taught me not to bother....

i was inspired by the forgotten food item thread, and was thinking about all the times i had purchased items for a get together, then didn't serve them because i knew they would go unappreciated.... high quality meats, seafood, cheeses, and bread top my list of things i refuse to squander on people who would be just as happy with a sloppy joe and some chips.. and groups of teenagers, FORGET about it, they'll eat anything, crappier the better for them......give them the bag of oreos, not the homemade cookies... chocolates, coffee, what do you keep stashed for the folks who actually know what their eating and appreciate it's value???

squirrel is good eatin'.... my brother and i have shot them from the ear corn feeders that you can hang on a tree.... he live in town, his hot tub was maybe 40 feet away from the feeder, we used to sit in the tub, drink beer, and shoot the squirrels w/ pellet guns, since you could discharge those in the city limits... nice squirrels too, big fat brown ones, and VERY well fed because everybody put food out for them... this was in northern illinois, so they were big squirrels anyway..... only did it in the dead of winter.....the squirrels were healthier that way... we were gonna have his wife shoot a video of it, kind of like a hunting video, and post it on the real tree board....... never got that far....... we would brown them quickly in a skillet, make a gravy, and eat it on bisquits.... great fun.........

stew............

boar odor comes from an aldosterone hormone, (sorry can't remember the exact name of the hormone). it is present in sexually mature male swine. it is the reason we don't feed intact male pigs for slaughter in this country. in other places intact males are fed but are slaughtered at a younger age to skirt around the issue of boar taint. the term pissy pork comes from the fact that the hormone is stored in a pouch or gland called the preputial diverticulum, which is loacated at the boars sheath, the hormone is excreted with the urine, which often times squirts all over the boar's belly, as when he pees he can shake his sheath to achieve this most desired result. boars want to stink because sows like it. most boar meat ends up in a blended state and is used in making lunch meats which are rarely cooked in the home. if you purchase some cold meats and heat them on the stove or in the m wave, you can smell the boar taint.... see the cool stuff you know by being a pig farmer....

goose jerky is awesome................ with a cold beer and pickled egg..........

when you roll your cabbage leaves, tuck the ends in w/ your fingers... think about it like rolling up a burrito so the stuff doesn't come out the ends...

exactly.......so, for the people at home the lesson is to buy one forty dollar steak, rather than four ten dollar steaks that can't be cooked well......say feeding a family of four.... 2-3 inches thick.......almost impossible to ruin..

kempton IN , just off hwy 31 north of indy 35 mi.......... the breeze inn pub.....hand breaded t-loins.....generally awesome home cooking......... very cold beer......

i ate at 801 ateak and chop for an entire week during the world pork expo.. to die for......... ended up w/ a nasty gout flare up......it was that good... the absolute sundae, homemade vanilla ice cream, pralines, decadent chocolate and a couple shots of absolut vodka....wow

i was cut loose on the grill as soon as i was old enough to be trusted w/ fire...... by age 13 i was working summer weekends for an outdoor caterer, chops, chicken and steaks....... matriarchs in my family pounded us boys with pertinent 411 regarding ALL things culinary and domestic......... the logic was "you better know how to do all this right, in case you marry some girl who doesn't know how"......... which happened.......

infuse your vinegar with all forms of pepper, pickled habeneros work great... you can also pickle some smoked sausage links with your eggs........ eggs and pickles are a staple in eastern NC, find em in most any country store.... require beer to wash egg down........

Boy, that sounds good to me ! (Was it?) ← it was really good.......... too much "wodka" though.......... where i come from cabbage rolls are served, sliced like a baked potato w/ plenty of sauce ladled into the filing...... i would think the barley / brown gravey option would be much enhanced by some sour cream....... maybe a similiar deal w/ lamb and yogourt.....

here are some tips from my slovak ancestors, where serious discussions are always held on the subjecto of cabbage rolls....... preferred cooking method can vary from slow cooker, to roaster oven, to stovetop, to kitchen oven...... concensus is found on meat...it has to be CHEAP with plenty of fat, so they don't get dry.......pork or beef is optional, some people use a blend.... cabbage head is cored, and placed in boiling water, the leaves are plucked off the head w/ tongs....... no minute rice...... don't pack the rolls too tightly, or they get rubbery...... season to your taste, tomato sauce consistency from chunky and thick, to a high tomato juice content... i had dinner with a polish family several years ago, they stuffed with ground beef, wild mushrooms and BARLEY..... they were in a brown mushroom gravy....... unused cabbage portions are usually chopped and added to the bottom of the cooking vessel......or saved for sauteeing w/ pierogie, or dumplings and butter....... if you don't want to go through the work of making the rolls, you can chop your cabbage, then mold your meat and rice into balls, sauce, and cook.... i have kicked around the idea of using collard greens, ground ham, and a smokey ham gravy........

while the cost of production for these "exotic meats" is high, it is miniscule in comparison to the cost of processing and marketing them... margins in "factory" livestock farms are damn thin as it is, almost as bad as a restaraunt.... i have been working on a wild boar project for almost five years as a hobby... selling shooter pigs to hunting lodges, and marketing custom labeled processed wild boar meat for those lodges..... i have worked through all the production, processing, and logistics issues, including interstate transportation of live animals w/ appropriate health papers etc... i have solid sales prospects/verbal committments........ but who to finance it???????? good ideas that die on the vine......... even if i won the lottery i wouldn't bother w/ it too much like work......

i'm still contemplating the notion of"round bottomed beauties in the kitchen"... a simple pear crisp w/ heavy cream..... pears candied w/ sweet potatoes or fall squash......

there's a big chevre industry out there that's based on curd w/ bling bling.... pretty stupid, what is essentially low fat cream cheese (fresh chevre, fromage blanc, yada yada), gussied up w/ cheap herbs from sams club.......dried fruit, sun dried tomatos,...... yuck.........

SOS of course. Being in a military family, this was well loved breakfast. And sometimes dinner. ← on buttered toast.......for the win........

jar of dry roasted peanuts, pocket full of red delicious apples picked off the tree, pocket knife to slice the apples, 5 gallon bucket overturned to sit on..... dew on the grass, and a titty pink sunrise....... gotta go feed the dogs and check the cows.......

were you smokin weed before you went to the store????? that used to happen to me all the time, until they invented drug testing....... srysly though, my mother was notorious for huge sunday dinners that usually included large pieces of meat which became lunch box fare all week long.... or the mystical pot of spaghetti sauce that somehow morphed into sloppy joes by wednesday....

bone it out and cube it up, carnitas, tamales, empanadas, pot pie, stew w/ saurkraut and potatos...... skewer and grill w/ veggies, pork salad sammiches, grind for pork burger (2 million uses like italian sausage for pizza, or season for breakfast sausage).... it's endless........