picture "perfect" we shall see

Okay let's see if Cody can put a picture on here,..if this worked then you are looking at the house's Christmas dinner.  Last time i had Christmas dinner with my roommates we also had this bone in rib, with cauliflower puree and roasted brussels sprouts and a nice demi glace.

             Ah Christmas morning, last year i was with the family for the first time in years, but alas this year i get to spend it with my fellow co workers much like many years in the past. that's the wonderful part of working hospitality.  who knows, perhaps the snow of maine will render everyone drive less and stuck indoors so the hotel will have no choice but to let all of the fine people at the haraseeket inn enjoy the fruits of our labors, and they would all have to listen to me play piano.
             Any way, shot pointless post, i mostly wanted to see if i could put a picture on here.

Okey dokey,.so here is my amuse back from September 21'st at 4:21 in the pm.  Man i must have been running late. So an amuse is somthing complimentary that each diner gets before the meal starts, "amuse bouche" not sure what that translates into exactly but i think loosely it means a good hours worth of work by Cody that either doesn't get used by lazy servers and thrown away and or complained about because the guest wants something else..yeah my french is rusty,..
   Anyway let's see here, i have purple endive as the base with herbed chevre(goat cheese) brunios red bell, and curly scallion.  the point here folks is really to make a one bite little taste to start of the dining experience, nothing too aggressive, but something cute or dandy, looking more to feed the eye you know.  in fact i think i will use this blog spot to document my daily amuse so i don't forget, as my short term is kinda shot,..wow especially with peoples names at work.  What's more it seems that having worked there for 5 or so months they get annoyed that i can't remember them.....

  

sorry i'm not webster

miripoix= ratio of onion 1/2,carrot 1/4,and celery 1/4
brunios= small dice aproxy, 1/4 on an inch by 1/4 of an inch,...so small pretty dice really
mise en place=everything in it's place, meaning all of your ingredients, organized and ready to go.
blogger dashboard=?
i have these terms that we use in the work place and am unsure sure if they are common knowledge or not

i'm'na get a camera soon for this

sailor bean soup(navy)

okay sister holly,..navy bean soup easy to read:

1 1/4 cups  navy beans
2 tbls olive oil
3/4 cup brunios carrot
1 cup brunios celery
1 cup brunios onion
1/2 tsp minced garlic,...done properly mind you
smoked ham hock
1 Qt stock,chicken, veg but not beef please
Sachet(see recipe)
S+P tt
tabasco or another vinegar based hot sauce tt

    So the important part here are the beans really at first,..you want to make sure there is no rocks or any nonsense like that cover the beans with a good few inches of water and boil, take off heat,cover and let soak for about an hour or so,.the longer you let them soak the softer the bean obviously, meaning you can eat a soft bean right away or if you keep them a little less cooked then you get to enjoy the magic that happens after you let the soup sit overnight,..your choice.

   Okay, beans on the side resting covered, now get to your miripoix, that'd be the brunious veg(small dice) get some olive oil in the pan you plan on cooking the soup in and heat up the miripoix just to a sweat, also a little salt works wonders here as it helps to let the water from the veg seep out thus releasing good flavor for the beans to soak up.
    now our veg is done add the beans (drained of course), to the sauteed veg along with the stock, simmer for an hour,....
    side note here,..some like to add diced potato here as a thickening agent, i never thought it was necessary though, but like i said, "some" like it
   also if you opt for no potato then this is where you would add the "sachet".. this being a tsp peppercorn, three thyme sprigs, 3 or so bay leaves, and parsley sprig all encased and tied in a cute little bundle of cheesecloth,..or i've used a section of a towel or a t-shirt before, but that's gross.  if you want to get fancy tie some large leek leaves around it, but the important thing is to make sure you can take your little sachet bundle out in one piece so you don't have to separate all those aromatics from your soup later, as we just want this thing to season it.

okay, so now we have beans, stock, sweated miripiox, sachet, and now for the ham hock, add it and simmer for however long it takes to be done,....so that's when the beans are tender right?  at this point i remove my sachet and my ham hock,..pick the hock apart and chop to nice bite size pieces, a medium dice should suffice!  HA good rhyme, i should send it to chris for a song,...

    sorry anyway take a portion of the beans out,..and this is all a matter of textural preference really,..if you like a silky smooth soup then you could blend the whole thing, want a bit more texture then only blend a partial amount...i like about a third of the beans blended.

   So after the blend you mix in, season for taste, let us not forget that starchy foods like this absorbs much salt so you might need more than you think,....also starchy food like this is a great place for food born illness so refrigerate properly.
 
    And when i say season i mean S+P and the Tabasco, remember the thing when tasting your food is to ask what flavor is not hitting your palate, you taste beans, and savory ham, and salt, and ,and and,..what's missing? train your taste bud to feel what's not there,..is it sweet perhaps ? or maybe a little bitter,  just how i like my girlfriends, little and bitter! HA!...

  okay so that was my first recipe, with ingredients and everything,..harder than i thought,..holly i hope this works for you and your step mom i believe was inquiring about it

Cody

bad dog

A day off is always nice,..my wonderful and hetero life mate charlie bought me a little baby gate,.. you know the ones you use to block of hallways or staircases that would certainly result in death to a person just learning how to walk,..(small children). 
  
       anyway charlie bought me the baby gate for the purpose of keeping his little mini schnauzer out of my room as he has in an act of aggression defecated in my room many occasions. i'm not happy with that however, he does have small hard little poops, easy to clean, not sloppy and smear it the carpet poop.  okay enough of that talk, me thinks that's more dessert conversation.

 So now that "bo bo" ( great name to shout out in the hood when you try to sound tough), had n accident with his BM, it seems he ate thread or floss or something , so he was unable to dislodge properly his feces after being let out for "potty" ( and yes they cll it that)  so the little guy had a sizable piece attached to his very hairy little dog butt. which went unnoticed by all parties of the house. so he dragged that smelly dog crap all over charlie's room and bed and blanket's,pillows, clothes and carpet.

    I witnessed comedic justice, charlie had to put the dog into the bath and pull string, or whatever it was, from bo bo's smelly hind parts. all the while gagging and fighting vomit.  he used about two rolls of toilet tissue while cleaning bo bo, thus clogging the toilet as well,..so we have flooding poop water, and wet dog in bathtub while he is cutting the poop from his body with our kitchen shears, which are now our "dog shears".

   i got done laughing at his dilemma and decided to help,...i plunged and help wipe up, but i thought i had to share this story,..can't think of a good segues for a recipe, so there it is

seven,..Catch

Funny word this one,..ever notice it,..usually it has a positive connotation,.."Nice catch" when someone throws something at you, or "she's a good catch, a real keeper" ..which i always thought funny 'cause i think that relates to a fish right? talking about a potential soul mate as a fish,...."catch of the day!" that doesn't sound very monogamous. However i guess you can catch hell from your boss, or catch a bullet, or catch the flu. no one ever says ''nice catch" when you catch the flu, it's opposite then,..you throw things then, throw that Kleenex away, I'm throwing you out of work, your sick,..then i go home and throw up. funny these words.
   i guess you catch catch a crook right? or catch something on fire, or catch someone in the act of something,...you know now that i think of it the word has more negative connotations than positive.  i'm sleepy now so maybe catch some Z's.
  just kiddin i had had to finish the joke, but "catch of the day" reminded me of food, and i want to mention something about cooking in these blogs.
         Maine folks have a problem with fish ,..but that's just me, i am a westerner,...they have wonderful fish here, lobster, clams , mussels, haddock(not very good),..but they can't cook salmon, or halibut,...they bake it it seems. so i want to talk about fish.
             fish should be cut right, the cut should be even as possible, i know that it can't, but it's not too hard to cut fish for home use.  fish cooks pretty quick you see so uniformity is important so as not to have dried out piece of fish on the end and rare piece at the top....okay i think i've gone over that enough.

            Now, salmon  i know pretty well having worked in seattle hotels and restaurants for a while,...i have found salmon, even though i am quite sick of it, always turns out better when seasoned(S+P) and at room temp, put into your pan, cast iron if you have it, with clarified butter on the skin side mind you. Now that doesn't mean there has to be skin, it just means the side the skin was on, i rather like the skin on however. anyway a good sizzle from the fish, and then add the cubed unsalted butter to the pan with thyme and a clove of garlic that you just smashed with you knife. tip the pan so the melted butter pools to the bottom, and with your spoon, gently pour this aromatic butter over the raw side of your fish. "basting" it i think is the term,..i like calling it "cooking the fish right" but basting is one word and easier to say, plus it sounds professional,...okay off the subject.

now when the fish is done cooking you will be able to tell by the way it looks,....nice crust on the bottom and gets more rare to the top, as we never flip it, we let the butter do the cooking from above, meanwhile, the thyme and garlic perfumed the butter, and now you remove it from the pan and present it with the seared side up on some rice or spinach, or really whatever your cooking now, and one has salmon ,..not steamed or grilled but in my opinion,....cooked how it should be to represent seattle.!

   hope my hopelessly style of a recipe was easy enough to "catch"

curry with the english

never made curry before really,but i was in portland yesterday and found a great indian grocery! like most indian markets i've been to, they sold EVERYTHING!, spices teas, rice, frozen goods, naan, baliwood movies, baliwood posters of half naked dudes,candy charms,tea pots, insence, lotterey tickets lifeinsurance,spare tires, hotel rooms, half hour special girls, gummy bears, bike pumps, passports, and the will to live....
   okay some of that was just for fun,. there was no lottery tickets, and the will to live came in the form of chicken thighs and basmati rice that i scented with some black tea i recived from my lovely and talented hair lady from scotland or wales, i'm not sure, i just no she's hard core but very polite about it,..plus she cut's my hair perfect too! i don't have to explain to her what i want,..she just knows how to make me look not so unfortunate looking.
     Anyway i got the chicken thighs marinating in spices and yougurt, lot's of tumeric,..sear the meat and then saute those good veg in that fat with more tumericm and garlic powder, chili flake, deglaze with soy and simmer with coconut milk....oh my heaven it was great!

I also got a new robe today, which makesme feel comfortable and cozy, and very unproductive all at the same time, ..what a great article of cothing to inspire so many different and clashing moods.

so the curry went well,..i wish to try it out on sombody that knows the what curry should taste like as i really don't know much about it.   i see many idian joints around here,(not casino's) but i don't know if they are ny good, i just know that the indian peole i have know were all very attractive, i get the brown fever from my mom i think,..is tha offensive?  it's not racist when you "like" the race right?

third,..new passion

i still want this motorcycle, and i want it even more and more when people tell me not to get one...i think my closest are afraid i'll die on it.funny saying "die on it" cause i think you die when you are quite off of it. anyway that's niether here or that way...(funny joke).
    So yeah i'm thinking a motor bike,..and a fidlde,..i wanna be the next fiddle racer, it's so pretty the sound of a broke up bike and a little bluegrass fiddle played by an amature...
     So i was called off work today as there is no one dancing in maine now, no one eating at our fine dining room, too bad ,cause i was going to be creative today,..i had fresh beets and goat cheese.
  
        Why don't we sing anymore? i try it at work, but there is this somolian guy that just steals the show, i'm telling you he can sing! i love it so much, he sounds so passionate as he sings in the minor key, flawless in exicution and always in right time,in a language know to the africans that work there, but still pretty to the people that "Get" to hear him sing his lonley and sad song that i have no idea of the meaning but, it's just so cool,..i hope that when i sing "sweet home alabama" that it sounds as magical, but i know it doesn't...oh well..i have been wondering what is for dinner tomight...i do have some pizza dough.

  okay there we go, pizza!..the thing that many people do is over work their dough,..you gotta learn to let the dough talk to you, let it tell you when it's ready, sometimes a round form is not what this pizza wants,.....
everyone want's to force the dough into a shape that it might not want to go into....i mean how important to you is it that your dough is round and or thick the same way at 3 oclock as it is 11 oclock?

   i hope the cooks got that joke,...anyway  i say make a pretty dough thick and thin enough in the right places,..like my favorite girlfriend,..now we can add our favorite toppings, but first i like to pre cook the flat bread a little before building my meal.....400 is good at about 10 min's just to start her off.,,,..and yes my pizza is a she, note my funny allegory before...

  so now that your crusty lady is ready to recive goodness, and you have had a glass of beer for insperation, find the dood veggies in your 'fridge, ..a lot of people go strait for the tomato sauce and cured meats at this point, which is very good , but you don't have to be a slave to that conventional pizza mantra, it works,  and is tasty, but, ....think...olive oil,...think,, spinach, .,,,think olives and julianned onions,, some hot sauce,...way better than trying to copy the "HUT", don't you think?
      this goes back to cooking well and good for yourself,..the message i am trying to convey to anyone who mightread this silly little blog,...so you  you do want cheese right?  of course, while you choose what to put on your "ZA and let it cook,..lets talk about my lovely family.

 i miss you guys so much ,.i wish nothing more than to cook a bird for you at thanksgiving, i miss so much the smell and the sounds of the kitchen with my little brothers and sisters, knowing they are learning and gunna be fed,...the smell that fills the little kitchen, the heat that makes me sweat and give the apearance that i actually work for a living,....the stupid little dog eating the scraps, and the smoke alarm going off because i burned dripping oil from the gravy.,......i don't have that now, ,..and am wondering when i will again,..i miss small children grabbing at my apron begging for the a bite of uncle cody's special dinner, even though it's somthing simple as soup or meatloaf.

    P:izza time,..so i have been going with olive oil, minced garlic, S+P , thin sliced onion, maybe bell peppers, hot sauce and lots and lots of spinach,, mozzarella of course or a little goat cheese is even better, and once again do not forget the salt, please please remember the salt., then you should be good.,,...now i'm hungry again.

   hey listen to that violin guy i posted, i love it very much,..plus it makes you a better cook


Cody

Laurent Korcia, Cinéma "por una cabeza" ( Clip)

nerd..

i clocked out of work today, to sit in line with a group of  people waiting for the newest installment of a video game,..my roomate bought an early copy i guess so i found myself in the foggy,rainy, cold outdoors hangin' out with people that choose to spend their time playing this game. and i found it pretty cool really.  the game is "call of duty" i thinkk, black op's . i was out of my element,..i haven't the dedication that these lonley people have, i kind of wish i did though, they were all so excited and dressed up, it was kinda funny being the "dork" the only person that wasn't a "gamer" i was the outcast in line,...there was a couple of cute girls too but i had no idea how to flirt with them.  It was sad 'cause 'nerdy girls are so cute, but you have to know your nerdness to talk to them,..wow weird, girls are just a complication, i wish i weren't so attracted to them as my life might be much eaisier....so anyway i forgot what i was talking about,...i want to talk about food, and how to cook food

thanksgiving is around the perverbial corner isn't it?
I love this holiday, because it's eat and cook and family,...i miss that very much, as christmas can get very complicated, whereas thanksgiving is just simple. ....imiss it very much, i think my favorite thanksgiving's have been in brookings oregon, with the peeps and bobbers and even once with bartels too.. brother jake made a cover for my turkey deep fry,.. he really loves me,i can tell.
       my favorite meal was one i had with bobber and brother jake and holly and the peeps, i made little chickens and coursed a meal out, i think sister holly took some pictures, however i always loose these pictures, this is why i need to blog about these things so i can remember what i do.

Anyway once again, i want to give a navy bean soup recipe but i can't seem to find one.  i can tell you that the beans are important, when you soak the beans, it is also important to bring into play some aromatics, water and beans are good, but introduce water beans and bayleaf, or peppercorn, and or thyme and garlick, perhaps parsly, these are all things that bring flavor that most would overlook,.but really that's what's so cool about cooking, .....really the little tiny things that you would overlook just to get to "EATIN TIME"!,..no no no my friends, listen to the water as it simmers, smell the stuff as it simmers , get to know your food before you eat it, love it and care for it .  there is somthing so romantic about watching a pot of bones and cartalige simmering for hours and hours,..taking a nap and getting up to smell marrow cooked slowly, and bones giving up the good thickness to a broth,..somthing you made and had the patience to watch,and babysit. this is once more somthing that we can all do very easily and should do more often, we can feed ourselves a lot easier than we tramp our selves out to the eating habbits of the common blue collar worker,....we are better than that,...so let's eat better than that.

second

i really need a camera for this kind of thing,..a picture is worth more than a few words i hear.

so how to cook for one's self by cody larsen;
    the very sad thing about our working class gents and gems these days is that we have lost the way and wherewithall to do the most simple and basic of task,..feed ourselves.  it's really too bad, because it's not all that hard, i for instance feed people i don't really care about for a living. i go to work, make good food, cash a check, pay rent, and pray for a girlfriend. why then is it so hard to cook for one'self, or the people you do care about? i know that there are home cooks out there that do so, but i think we often go too quickly to the horrible easy convienient foods, we cook shit basically for ourselves.  this should not be, and i will climb off my soap box now and get down to what i'm gunna eat tonight.
                                   tonight,...hmmmlet's see here,.flank steak, i have, broccoli, rice, carrots. look at that sounds like stirfry to me. ....so what's first you ask? well, wash the rice, cook the rice. ..rice is easy to cook and easy to destroy, do it right i say,.also rice can be wonderfull and interesting as well.  when you cook rice, put aromatics in there , really anything you can think of, orange zest, bayleaf, thyme ,..i've been adding a little green tea leaves to mine, it's really nice and smells great.
          So look at that! you can eat rice by it's self for a better meal than you'd get waiting in a drive thru...but there is more.  So while the rice is steaming, im' gunna put the steak in a ziplock with some sambal oil, peppercorn, little vinager is nice, then sear that piece off and while it's resting use the same pan to saute some of that good'ol' broccoli and carrot, all the while your friends think you are an outstanding chef,  from the smells emitting from the smokey kitchen,..oh yes anotherthing that home cooksforget is the salt and pepper.  never EVER forget the salt, salt is our love and passion close and dear to every cooks heart,..salt is currancy at times, by god ghandi was almost put to death for making his own salt. so let us not forget the importance of salt.
   anyway, the rice is done right? the meat is rested, ready to slice? okay...use that pan we had the meat in and put in your nice chopped veg,.. we can talk about how to use a knife properly later,...so we saute the veg all nice and brown, green onions are good right at the end here,...
     so we haverice, meat and veg,..way better than jack in the box or some damn frozen pizza, really people it's that easy, feed yourself right and well, it's better for you and your friends, it practices a time honored skill for life, plus it's cheaper.
    so that's my standard meal, when hungry.   there is more to come though as i wish to tell the masses how easy it really is to cook and cook well, the grocery store has you fooled, cooking is a lost art and skill that we all should have.
   Navy bean soup huh holly? you want that one? i'll try to figure one ut,  i think i made that soup for the wedding thang. 

First

My lovely and talented sister in law i choose to call Holly, managed to keep herself up many hours glued to a computer screen ignoring her starving kids just to make this page for me,..no she probably made dinner burped,chamged diapers, and taught silas algebra at the same time..  Anyway, that was a thank you Holly.

          So I go back ro work today after a gruelling three days off ,doing nothing but tye fly's and cook food,..I'm so dull really.  This part of the states is quite grim this time of year, very grey and foggy, kinda rainy, and people talk a little funny.  OOOh also the political game here is way more of a bloodsport then back east,..I mean people here are serious! it's crazy.  the elections are over , i don't know who won but it's everyone talks about here in the great state of maine.....next post will have a recipe