Tales from Easement Acres
Sometimes I don’t want to write about my cooking. Sometimes I just want to post a pic, because some dishes don’t need yet another blogger’s recipe. Therefore, I introduce to new blog category: Food Porn.
Today’s entry: Salisbury Steak
–Simon
385 words, 2 minutes read time.
Now that I’m 40, I’ve done some reflecting. In all, I don’t have too many complaints when I really think about it. I mean, America’s golden age – at least in recent history and the era we still seem to consider the gold standard (hehe) – was the 1950s and 60s, and a time in which the war and postwar generations saw large economic growth.
Just look at those GDP spikes, compared to 2007, when I entered the workforce full time! Sure there were some recessions, and the Boomers still whine about how bad interest rates were in 1980 (and how so many of them were almost drafted for The Vietnam War), but look at the growth recovery following each of those events, compared to the 2008 Great Recession.
Inflation and rising interest rates:
Inflation and oil energy dependency:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_1980s_recession_in_the_United_States
Unsustainable and predatory financial lending practices:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007%E2%80%932008_financial_crisis
And studies which I won’t bother to cite because you have a search engine too have long mockingly laughed at my generation’s plight, as those who enter the workforce in a recession are doomed to never make much money. And yet, here Liz and I sit, apparently as 12%-ers. And also apparently I’ll be a multi-millionaire at retirement according to projections. And like most of my generation, I normally don’t discuss my financial situation, because we just don’t want to get into it with a boomer. But sometimes I think it’s healthy to brag about one’s accomplishments and this one in particular is contrary to everything I was told was going to happen, thanks to boomer generational masturbatory article headlines (“Your kids are lazy and won’t get a job and they’re moving back home to take your money”).
But I started off on a tangent. I meant to post some cheap laughs at becoming older, but I’m apparently so adversarialy positive about my situation that I got distracted with everything good that’s happened on my journey to becoming middle-aged.
Oh well. Fodder for my next post I suppose, since I’m almost hitting 400 words here! Next time – how long it takes to grow out a damaged fingernail! Woo!
–Simon
541 words, 3 minutes read time.
There’s a saying out there something along the lines of: a complex design has a lot of failure points, so it isn’t a good design. Something like that. Of course, sometimes the additional complexity outweighs the detriments. For example, safeties! I very much appreciate that my pistol has dual safeties, because even though their necessity might be low and cause a malfunction, to not have them at all presents potentially lethal consequences.
But this does not apply to all safeties, because the consequences of misuse are not always so extreme. For example, my coffee bean grinder! Am I thankful that the manufacturers took the precautions that prevent me from turning in on and being able to stick my finger into the gears? Um, kind of indifferent there, as that’d be difficult to do even intentionally. But am I annoyed that the spring switch broke inside it and bricked the damn thing? Yes, yes I am. So I opened it (the act of which many designers take pains to prevent, so they can sell me a new product), removed the switch and wired a bypass circuit. Now I can use it again, though I have to be careful to not snake my finger down and around and up inside the extractor chute (again, never a problem to begin with). Bad design!
But the Ninja blender was especially egregious! I always had it in for this thing, because it’s designed to be a smoothie maker primarily, which is fine if that’s all you want to do with it, but the lack of top access prevents other culinary applications, like making emulsions or staging liquid additions. Plus, it’s all made of plastics – yes, the material that makes it possible…to break and have to buy a new unit. Because it’s of course non-user-serviceable (unlike the grinder), and replacement parts are more expensive than the unit!
Specifically, the Ninja is armed with a convoluted safety that stops the blades from spinning if I take off the lid. This alone isn’t a bad idea, since the full-length blade setup needs to be secured by the lid or it’d wobble and fly off across the kitchen. That at least is understandable. What isn’t, however, is everything else I just mentioned. It’s cheap material, the lid keeps breaking, and I can’t buy reasonably-priced parts. The lid activates the safety, so warped lid = no blending.
So at the risk of making a negligent mess or poking out an eye, I again bypassed a safety, because the warped lid still works! I pine for the days before my own when things were actually made to last – a defunct concept gone before I was born. Sigh.
Anyway, here’s what I did, for the archives:
Safety tab #1 determines which modes can be used with which attachments. Whatever.
Safety tab #2 is the universal failsafe. If it’s not depressed, then the unit won’t run. The warped lid failed to depress this sufficiently, so…
I drilled a small hole through which I could insert a toothpick to depress the safety all the way. It’s far enough down that the lid’s safety doesn’t get snagged on it, and I snapped off the excess wood.
And so, anti-consumer hostile design thwarted. Suck it, SharkNinja LLC!
–Simon
571 words, 3 minutes read time.
(Did you notice I added word count and read time? I always thought this was silly myself when I come across it, because if I actually clicked on the article, it’s probably going to interest me enough that the world count disclosure wouldn’t dissuade me. But, ADHD as we are, I’ll start providing the courtesy.)
To char-grill, or smash burger? Ah, such is Man’s burden – to be forced to decide between coal-fired crisp or succulent smooshed sear. The former produces thick patties encrusted with Malliard’s magic, but can all too often result in dry burgers that don’t retain cohesion upon flipping. The latter produces crisp edges and juicy interiors, but lacks the char crust and retains too much grease for comfortable digestion. So we must choose a preference, and I don’t like those restrictions!
What if there were a way to have your burger and eat it too?
Introducing: Simon’s Patenty Patented Patty Prep!
Step 1, line a grilling cage with aluminum foil. I prefer grilling foil to those sissy skimpflated hair-dying foil sheets they pass off at the grocery now. No really, I had budget foil melt on the grill before. Don’t use it.
Step 2, spray the foil in oil and arrange your patties. Leave sufficient room between them to allow for smashing. Season.
Step 3, close the cage around the foil and patties, and lock.
Step 4, perforate the foil on both sides. This will allow the excess grease to drip out and the smoke to add seasoning.
Step 4, place the cage over direct heat and grill. It will take longer due to the added mass and foil shielding, but be patient and don’t worry about the flareups. They won’t burn. Use an instant-read thermometer to monitor progress. Some of this will be more instinctual since you can’t visually inspect.
Step 5, flip accordingly, but don’t flip too early or you’ll miss out on browning. Pull the patties when the internal temperature is where you want it.
Step 6, add cheese and rest the patties while still on the foil. It will cool quick enough, but retain enough heat to gently melt the cheese.
Step 7, of course, is to stuff face hole.
And there you have it! No crumbled patties from a botched flip. No need to add binding agents to hold the patties together. Hole size can be customized to determine level of runoff and browning. The slight smash of the cage offers a compromise between char-grill and smash burgers. And the properly-oiled foil doesn’t stick to the patties how even the most clean of grill grates always tends to.
You may license my patent for $1 per patty. Happy grilling.
–Simon
450 words, 2 minutes read time.
As a freshwater angler, there aren’t really a lot of fishing knots that need to be known. The general formula is to balance tying ease, friction, and shear force distribution; so that you don’t spend forever fiddling with stiff line but still end up with something that will hold but not snap under pressure. To achieve this end, there’s a million damn knots out there in the community’s collective. And no, I don’t want to argue about them.
But I couldn’t find the one that I had been taught to use some 30 years ago. I’m guessing that some knots just fall out of favor. Modern fishing line can take more punishment than what I grew up with, so that probably allows for easier knots by sacrificing on shear force resistance. The knot I was taught to use was like a double passthrough version of the clinch knot, but in reality more like a modified noose. And it’s also entirely likely that I unintentionally modified the knot I was taught because I was too proud to ask for help more than once. (That, and I also remember needing a refresher and my dumb uncle told me to just tie a series of overhand knots. The knot failed as soon as I hooked a fish.)
In any case, I wanted to know the name of the knot I had been using, and it took me forever to find online, but it does in fact exist. I finally have a name for it: The Swivel Braid Knot. Which should not be confused with the Braid to Swivel Knot, or the Offshore Swivel Knot. I told you there were millions of these things.
So to document it before I forget what it’s called, I’m posting it here. And to give credit to the visual reference that helped me with identification, here’s the link. Although amusingly enough, the link is broken. The forum doesn’t appear to exist anymore. So again, it must indeed be an archaic knot:
I’m guessing by the name that it’s designed to resist torque, so that the swivel turns instead of twisting the line. Whatever its intent, you can see the bold claim for its use in the above image.
I rarely use it anymore unless I’m intentionally going after big fish with bigger lures, because it does indeed seem very strong compared to most knots. But mostly I use the Palomar Knot for shore fishing. It’s super easy to tie and to teach, and never had one fail on me.
But now, at least for posterity’s sake, I know the name of the classic knot that Dad may or may not have taught me sometime around 1995. Closure.
–Simon
