My Apologies, And The Joys of Excess...tricity

Andrew is even more coherent and organized than usual. Aren't you excited?

First, I must make some amendments to previous posts. We here at Young, Broke, and Clueless, do our best to bring you the journalistic and culinary standards you expect from a free and casual occassional blog, but some of our contributors are getting old and, well, are slipping as they age. I won't divest any names. Really, I've said too much already. But I must apologize for reviewing a cranberry wensleydale as a cranberry stilton. I feel foolish. I'm blushing, really. Also, for any reader who might have taken me at my word when I said it is not possible to make a bad hummus, I stand corrected. With my great skill and creativity I have discovered the world's worst hummus: it involves lots of basil. Basil does not play well with chickpeas, shall we say. However, if you independently discovered this in the past few weeks and the hummus is still sitting in your fridge because you cannot bear to throw good food away, nor to eat it, then know you can redeem your awful hummus with a good dose of Texas Champaigne. This is my preferred choice of hot sauce. For flavor, Tapatio is the way to go. But if you are mostly in the market for a hot sauce to use as a prop, or part of your home decor ensemble, then you simply must purchase a bottle of Texas Champaigne, the only pepper sauce which will make you smile at every passing. Tabasco Sauce is a distant third. It would not even exist anymore were it not for old Looney Tunes episodes with Sylvester the lisping cat who can't eat Tweety Birds without the proper seasonings. This blog is not brought to you by the fine makers of D.L. Jardine's Texas Champaigne, might I assure you? It is not in fact brought to you by anyone, and if you wanted to send me a donation or two, I might make fewer mistakes in the future...perhaps that has been my plan with typos and spelling errors all along- not to annoy Camila the editor- and I am only now springing it on you, at the perfect time...

Pumpkin Season was a real dud. I lost one giant gourd to pumpkin rot. Would not even risk cooking the seeds. And then my third and largest pumpkin was a thread pumpkin. I know of no way to discern a thread pumpkin from a standard pumpkin. Some pumpkins come apart in chunks and others in threads. Threaders cook slower and are less delectable. It did not help things that I made a wholly original fusion chile pretty much spontaneously with ground lamb, tart green apples, jalapeno and anaheim peppers, 6 kinds of beans, quinoa, tomatoes, potato shreds, and cooked it in my thread pumpkin. The dish was all right so far as my cooking goes. It might cut the mustard at some expensive restaurant where jerks go to be fashionable and their taste buds are burned off by Miller Light beer and intense quantities of salt from frozen dinners, but I did not have much desire to eat it as leftovers. I gave some away...and have not heard back yet. Maybe that is my answer. Well in any case, lamb is vile cold. Truly stomach turning. Hot I have to say this: I know what I hate...and I don't hate lamb...when it is not ground. Ground lamb is hereby downgraded to "cat food" on this blog, into perpetuity, and if I use the last pound of it in my freezer, I shall refer to it as such.

The seeds came out well. My new formula on pumpkin seeds is chile powder, garlic salt/season all, and cinammon. With a touch of olive oil. Delicious.

I have some really explosive hopes for a few books right now, and the reviews will come soon. I know we are all looking forward to my thoughts on "The Diaries of Samuel Pepys", known as history's greatest diarist, who also wrote of the joys of excess- a known gourmand who kept a divine and exotic table. And I cannot wait to crack open my copy of "How Carrots Won the Trojan War: Incredible (But True) Stories About Vegetables in History". Who doesn't want to know how turnips helped George Washington cross the Delaware? The person who just raised their hand is obviously mad. This is the seminal moment in American history as far as I am concerned. It is the moment when the first American (have I mentioned "Wasington's Expense Account?- an incredible book about the interest Washington billed Congress for eventually from all of his own money he used to pay the soldiers and so on?), had an inner Vince Lombardi "just win baby" moment, stood up on Christmas Eve and told his men, "Screw honor and all that. A win's a win. The Redcoats are kicking our butts, and unless we start cheating, we're royally boned. Now let's sneak over there tonight and catch them drunk tomorrow because it has been established custom in Europe for hundreds of years not to fight on holidays, and they still think of us as Europeans. Get your face paint," or something like that. It was the moment America was forged as the independent, mighty, hypocritical nation it was destined to be- after all, why fight toe to toe, and in lines, when the only battle the colonies had fared well in had been done with shady Indian guerilla tactics (Lexington and Concord), and you can always lie afterwards. Washington probably thought there would have to be an elaborate cover up to hide the fact that we turned the war with a sneak attack on a holiday (two no-no s for the time), but instead we are still praising him for it. Would the founding fathers have been mortified to think we would still be emulating them? I expect so. They planned on being replaced, forgotten or condemned for doing too little. They expected their children to be even more enlightened, and active, and to solve the slavery issue quickly for themselves...whoops. Well you know what they (I) say: building Utopia is good for the soul, inheriting it, will rot you. Everything's done: why not get drunk and debauch the girl next door...nobody paints in paradise.

I am still compiling my worst beers list, but Wasatch Brewery will hold a place of distinction. They are quite adept at being motley. Of the 4 beers I've tried, 2 earned single sip dumping status- that is, only swine could swallow more than once, and probably alcoholic swine at that. Polygamy Porter (why have just one?) is not disgusting, but then I've never had a bad porter. The flavor is frankly hard to mess up, if I remember the little I've read about the brewing process is correct. But it is like all Wasatch Beers, thin and weak, compared with others. I do appreciate this brewer for their rank reputation with the LDS Community (who believe marketing a beer as Polygamy Porter gives the LDS Church a bad name- I'd say the polygamy probably had more impact, wouldn't you?), but other than some mischievous marketing, not much is there. But I have reached 300 beers, making me the most expert beery I know.

For cheese, I must give a shout out to Butterkase, by C & W, a soft, smooth, mild, salty, creamy butter cheese of fine quality, and Beecher "Flagship", a potent, cheddery, well-aged, hard cheese with crumbly texture that is the double stout of cheeses- lots of flavor and body, and it will probably put hair on chest. So ladies, beware. But if you've been waiting for a cheese to really sock you in the stomach, this is the one. Supertasters, need not bother. You will hate it.