The Omnigeek

Growing up in the heart of Kentucky farm land, a staple of our diet was Cornbread.

For those who have never had cornbread. it is really more cake like than bread.  You don’t slice it in to thin slices and put sandwich meat or peanut butter and jelly on it.  Instead its typically baked in an iron skillet or other cooking dish, cut into squares like cake.  Its consistency is very grainy and it tends to crumble easily.

Sometimes its made into pancakes  and other time into muffins and its typically a salty buttermilk type of cornbread or a sweet cornbread.  Its color tends to indicate the type, with buttermilk tending to be whiter and sweet tending to be more yellow in color.

But this blog post isn’t about that.  It’s about learning to cook it.

Stereotypes are what they are, stereotypes and I’m an unfortunate by product of that.  Boys learned to use tools and dig holes in the ground and pepper rabbits with buckshot on a farm.  Girls learned how to cook.  In an urban situation, the actions by gender may be different but at the end of the day, more girls learn to cook than boys do.

Usually when you grow up, you learn to love your mother’s cooking.  Other mom’s just don’t do it right and if things work out correctly, those recipes pass down through the generations.   When I left the nest and got married, my wife (following stereotypes again) tends to do the cooking.  Cornbread was not a staple of hers growing up in Louisville and she tried to learn how to but we’ve always fallen back to using prepared mixes, with Jiffy’s sweet corn muffin mix being the best.

I lost my mom in 1997 and my father passed in 2002.  I sit here today, like I have for the past 15 years (10 in Dad’s case) in regret that I didn’t spend more time learning their recipes.  Mom’s Coca-Cola cake was legendary.  She made the meanest fried corn and country fried steak.  Man could she cook.  Of course she would always over cook her pasta until it was mush (no one is perfect).  And her cornbread was amazing.  Well I should say Dad’s cornbread.  Honestly I’m not sure I could tell you the difference, their cornbread was nearly identical, but I tend to remember Dad cooking it more than Mom.

Now while my father was one of the toughest old manly-man codgers you would have ever met.  There wasn’t anything he couldn’t fix or build and he never let anything like work get in his way.  He hunted, fished, played sports, de-horned and de-boyed cows with the best of them.  He was rugged, strong and stubborn (He was quite loving and kind too, but he rarely let people see that).  He’s not the kind of person you would expect to have finesse in the kitchen.

I don’t know if he learned it from my grand-mother or not or if he picked up techniques from Mom, but I do know that during World War II, while fighting at places like the Battle of the Bulge, his military specialty besides dodging sniper bullets was a cook.  Well as a Staff Sergent, he probably was the boss of the cooks.  So in addition to knowing his concrete, his coal mining, his farming,  he was also a great cook.

Fast forward to modern times.  My wife, the Queen of Free, saves an enormous amount of money each year with her shopping savvy.  One of the rules that comes with that is you have to live with the brands that are on sale.  That means we don’t get a lot of Jiffy Corn Muffin mix any more.  Our pantry is ether loaded with Martha White mixes or bags of straight up corn meal, the main ingredient.

If I’m being honest, these non-JIffy mixes don’t measure up to the Jiffy mix and that doesn’t measure up to Mom and Dads.  Over the past few months, I’ve been trying to figure out just how to get to something closer to what I grew up with.  Being scientific in nature, I want a repeatable formula.  I’ve never tolerated a pinch of this and a dash of that.  Give me exact measurements, precise timings and I’m much happier.

I’ve observed.  I’ve experimented.  I’ve researched.

Here’s what I’ve learned.

1.  Pre-heating your oven is critical to the cooking time.  If the formula, er. recipe says 20-25 minutes,  that’s assuming you are starting at the prescribed 425 degrees F.  Our oven can take 10 minutes to pre-heat and if you’re taking that 10 minutes of cooking time out of your 20 total, then your food will be under cooked, meaning longer cook times which can lead to burning.

2.  At least for cornbread, pre-heating the pan seems to also be important.  We have always poured the mix into a cold glass baking dish (we gave up on iron skillets a long time ago.  The concept of not washing them was difficult to deal with, but the rust was harder…  You put your oil/spray/lard into the pan and let it melt, over the pan and let it heat up.   This way as soon as the mix hits the pan it starts cooking.  This makes it come out of the pan much easier.

3. My cook times are still taking longer than they should.  I suspect that my oven (nearing 15 years old) may not be heating to the set temperature.  Sounds like I need a new oven!

Now I’m still off on taste.  The last batch I made was very dry almost like all the liquid baked out of it and I was left with corn meal.  I followed the formula exactly.  It was using a Martha White buttermilk formula and it only called for water or milk to be added.  I felt like it needed an egg or something to give it some glue.   The Martha White sweet cornbread mix I had used previously was also a bit drier than I liked but it did hold together better (and was more tasty).

I have a new batch that is cooling now that was made with a Mrs. Butterworth brand corn meal mix.  It asked for oil, an egg, milk and a little sugar.   I can’t wait to check it out and see how well it turned out.  It took about four minutes longer than the formula called for.

I will someday find the right formula.  But with having two boys who have not spent time in the kitchen, I doubt I will be able to pass my recipes down to a new generation.

Do you have a favorite cornbread recipe?  Post it in the comments below!

Prepare:

1. Grease a 9×9 baking dish with the extra stick of butter to keep the fudge from sticking.
2. Spoon the peanut butter into a measuring cup.
3. Have the confectioners sugar open and ready to pour.
4. Have your mixer with beaters ready.

Cook:

1. Melt the other stick in a sauce pan (quart size?)
2. Stir in 1/2 cup of Milk and the brown sugar, bring to a boil.
3. Boil for 2 minutes 0 seconds. Too long or not enough is a bad thing.
4. Remove from heat and add in the peanut butter and vanilla, stir until creamy. The vanilla will want to make the solution boil harder for a few seconds. Don’t be surprised!
5. Using the mixer on a middle setting, start beating in the confectioners sugar until you have a smooth creamy mixture.
6. Pour into the baking dish and with a spoon spread it out.
7. Put in the fridge for about an hour long enough for it to set.
   1. Share the beaters with someone, keep the pan for yourself, using a spoon to eat the fudge that was left behind.
   2. Cut into 1″ squares and put in a covered candy dish to serve.
   3. Nom nom nom.

Enjoy:

Disclaimer: I’m not responsible if your jeans don’t fit afterwards or any other conditions that occur.

A friend pointed me to this today and I just had to share it with my geek-kin:

Jones Limited Edition Spellcasting Soda

These look awesome! Go buys some for your geek friends including me!!!!

On the way home from vacation, the Mrs. notified me that we would not be eating in tonight, in particular after wrapping up a 10 hour drive.  I’ve been craving some non-KFC fried chicken and well I wanted to go to Golden Corral.  I lobbied my cause, she didn’t fight it, so it was time to visit the “Hungry Heifer”.

“Hungry Heifer” is a nickname we gave Golden Corral several years ago, when it was a frequent lunch haunt for a company I used to work for!

Most restaurants cut their chicken into 8 primary pieces:  Two legs, two thighs, two breasts and two wings.  However there is a method of cutting chicken to get a 9th piece where the breast is cut into three pieces:  two ribs and a center breast or keel.

We had visited the Heifer in Cary a couple of months ago and they were doing the traditional 8-piece cut.  Today, visiting the Durham location on Highway 55, near I-40 I was surprised to find keel’s in the pan.

Years ago, Kentucky Fried Chicken used to do the 9-piece cut, but sometime in the mid-80′s they stopped and went to an 8-piece cut.   I had always assumed it was because many people who were ordering all-white meat, or ordering breast meat was selecting the keels and they were left with rib’s that were harder to sale.  I don’t know for sure.

So I asked myself today “Was Golden Corral’s choice to cut keels a way to squeeze an extra piece out of each chicken?”  Is this a case of offering more by offering less?  Is it for cost savings?  I’ll take a keel any day, so for me this was a glad change?  Is this a corporate wide decision? Local management?  The chef’s choice?

Do you know of other restaurants that are offering center/keel cuts?

Your comment on this blog post will be appreciated.

Today the University of Kentucky athletic department and the men’s basketball head coach, Billy Gillispie separated ways. The separation was announced at a 4:30pm press conference after several days of speculation. You can follow the Lexington Herald-Leader’s coverage here!

There are numerous reasons why they needed to part ways but they can all be summed up with the fact that the program was going in a direction that Kentucky did not like and Gillispie was not the right coach to change that direction. Tubby Smith drilled a hole in the bottom of the ship and started it sinking. Gillispie was brought in to try and plug that hole, but the ship was still sinking. Now Kentucky needs to find someone who can save things.

But who will that be?

Florida’s head coach, Billy Donovan has been mentioned. He has built a strong program at Florida, a football school. Donovan is a Rick Pitino protege having been his assistant at Kentucky during their magical run. Is he interested? Would he fit in at Kentucky? Even with his National Championship, he is high profile enough? Can he be consistent? Florida didn’t make it into the NCAA tournament this year. That folks is a huge red flag. If Billy G’s failure to make the dance got him chased out of town, why do we think Billy D will be any different? He does come with strong UK cred having been a well respected assistant.

On the subject of assistants, does Kentucky court Leonard Hamilton, the current head coach at Florida State? He was Joe B. Hall‘s long time assistant at Kentucky? He’s partially responsible for one of the banner’s hanging at Rupp Arena with the 1978 National Championship. On the other hand, 1979 was an NIT year (though in fairness, it was a 40 team field, not a 64 team field, so it was harder to get to the big dance. Again, Hamilton doesn’t have the name power to bring in the McDonald’s All American’s needed to be a consistent Top-10 team. Also a major Geek negative, Hamilton’s Wikipedia page is abysmal. If a coach doesn’t have a decent Wikipedia page, how good can he be anyway?

How about convincing Rick Pitino to come home? Joanne will never go for it. So he would have to commute the one hour drive from Louisville to Lexington. I’m sure a private helicopter would be ponied up to make it happen. Arizona is reported to be chasing Pitino, but I doubt Joanne would put up with Tuscon if she couldn’t handle Lexington. But with Pitino just getting Louisville back to national prominence (sure Louisville wants to be a Football School!!!) he would be a fool to win and run.

Pat Riley? He could do the job, but has no interest in college basketball. He’s too used to life in Hollywood East, er. Miami. Lexington would be too simple for him.

Coach K? He would be met at the border with loaded shotguns. Roy Williams? He is the new evil overload of college basketball (though you have to respect him. He is a very good guy to be the arch-devil…..) but he is so happy at UNC, he wouldn’t give it consideration.

Jim Calhoun? The NCAA is looking at his program at UCONN for rules violations. Kentucky can’t risk that route.

John Calipari? He certainly puts together winning teams. He’s yet to win the big one, and in each of his coaching stints, he’s needed two to three years to get the teams to the NCAA. He has the most wins behind Roy Williams among active coaches. His two college jobs lasted 8 and 9 years respectfully, so based on his history, he may be ready to move on.

Bring Bobby Knight out of retirement?

Who ever it is, it can’t be someone who has built a low pressure school to making the dance. He has to be a proven winner. Someone who consistently, year-in and year-out produces a champion. It has to be someone who can thrive under the extreme pressure that is the Kentucky Basketball faithful yet not mind living in a small farm town. Kentucky doesn’t need a builder, it needs a star and those are few and far in between.

What do you think? Chime in by posting a comment on the blog.

How hard can it be?

Well it can be a real pain in the tookus.

Today during my telecommute day, it was approaching 1:30pm and the hunger monster showed up.  I didn’t want to spend much time preparing something.  I thought “Hmmm, a Bologna Sandwich and Chips would be easy”.  I was soooo wrong.

Normally you grab two pieces of bread, slap the bologna in between, then add your condiments of choice and chow down.

Well I’ve not been here for almost two weeks.  Even though I was in town Saturday and Sunday, we didn’t eat anything at home and I had no idea when the Mrs. had last bought bread.   I find a loaf of wheat bread in the pantry and pull it out.  It felt reasonably soft but I noticed a huge tear in the side of the plastic sleeve.  Some very adult words slipped from my mouth before I noticed that this loaf was one of the double bagged brands (which normally offends my lazyness).  I went to take off the tie and noticed it wasn’t on very good.  My concern level grew somewhat.  Then I get it open and the inner sleeve is open at the top.  My concern level grew considerably and a few more bombs flew.

I pulled out two slices and check for growing green mold.  Now with a whole grain wheat bread, you really can’t tell by smell and with some of the fiberish texture, spotting mold is rather hard.  But it looked safe and was still pretty soft, so I’m assuming that the tear in the outer sleeve must have been pinched off from the opening in the inner sleeve keeping air out.  But to be safe, I grabbed a 1 gallon zip lock bag, put the remaining loaf into the the ziplock, squeezed as much air out as possible and put it back in the pantry.  Now its triple bagged.

Then to the fridge.  We had some bologna before I left for Tacoma so there should be a container in the fridge.  After searching under and behind just about everything in there and a few vulgarities later, I was about ready to give up.  I checked the freezer and I found a new package but I could play hockey with it.

So it was microwave time.

Now if you’ve ever tried to microwave bologna you know two things.  First, it heats up outside first, much like the umbrellas you get when you fry it and don’t cut it.  There is no microwave setting that will get the center (even on the top pieces) defrosted before the outer edges start cooking.  This is evidence that Microwaves don’t cook from the inside out.

The second issue is the packaging is not microwave safe.  On top of it, trying to pull the yellow lid off of the frozen container stretches the lid in such away that it won’t re-seal against the now melted plastic container.   I got my slices off the top, tried for a couple of minutes to get the lid to seal so I grabbed another 1 gallon ziplock back, squeezed out the air, and sealed the bologna up and put it back in the fridge.

I wanted to add cheese to the sandwich.  Get back into the fridge and see that a block of cheddar was in a 1 gallon zip lock from before I left for the Pacific NW.  We had a new block that we bought for the Superbowl but didn’t use (we ended up at a story and bought a block for the party anyway) so I had new cheese.  I tossed the old cheese, got out the new one and the plastic ripped as I was opening it.  To compound matters, I couldn’t find my cheese slicer, so I used a serrated steak knife to slice off some for my sandwich (which is an exercise in futility anyway).  But now I had two half blocks and a torn bag.  So I grabbed the 1 gallon zip lock bag that the old cheese came out of, replaced it with the new cheese, squeezed out the air, zipped it up and put it back in the fridge.

The chips bag was new and thankfully it opened with no difficulties.  Finally I had a sandwich, probably some 7-8 minutes after it should have been done.  It was a rather frustrating process.

But oh was it tasty and I hope its not from some undetected mold on the bread.

Geek Cuisine — Oh How I Hate “Fancy” Restaurants

I lied. I’m not the omni-geek. I realized that when it comes to food, I’m far from a geek. I like my food plain and boring. I’ve only been eating plain rice for not even a year and I’ve only started on mac-and-cheese in the past month and I’m 47.

I’ve been a picky eater since I was a child. My mother tried desperately as a child to get me to eat mashed potatoes. I didn’t start eating those until after she passed away several years ago. So needless to say, when I travel, eating can be a challenge.

For those that know me, know I’m rather roundish. I eat and I eat well. I love the foods that I do eat. Being picky is more of a fear to try new things. Its a fear of being embarrassed when you don’t like something and there is a frugal side that you don’t want to pay for something you may not like.

But I realized that part of my issue is growing up a Kentucky Farm Boy I never learned “Fancy”. I don’t know what a “reduction” is. What the hell is “poblano mashed potatoes” or a “tomatillo sauce”? I’m food-ignorant. Being “geek” in something means your passionate about it. Your good at trivia in the subject. You care enough to learn about it. But when it comes to fancy food, I’m stumped.

I joke that “If I can’t pronounce it, I won’t eat it”. But its really not a joke, I’m pretty sure that I won’t eat it.

So I sit in Tacoma, Washington and I’m here for 9 days. I’m staying downtown which means there is not an abundance of fast food in walking distance and what is usually isn’t open for dinner. There are also no “chain” locations like a nice Outback Steak House where I know I can find safety food.

Last night, I ventured out for what should be safe, “bar food”. I headed to the Harmon Brewery, a micro brewery and restaurant. This should be safe right? Not really. While I could pronounce most everything on the menu, most everything was loaded with food I know I don’t like (or am afraid to try. Why is there blue-cheese on everything?). It didn’t help that the beer was bitter and the “Sprite” was flat.

Well I went with safe and got a bacon cheddar burger (I only like cheddar and provolone cheese on things other than motz on pizza.). The claim this place has great hamburgers. It was just kinda blah as far as bacon cheddar burgers go.

So tonight, work went long, so I really didn’t want to drive around a lot, so I went to the restaurant in the same building as the hotel, called the Pacific Grill. This restaurant provides the room service for the hotel I’m staying at. I saw a lovely “Fish and Chips” safety food on the room service menu. So I decided to go down to the hotel restaurant and give it a try. I left without my coat since I expected to access it from the hotel. Nope. Its a completely separate business about a half a block down the street.

When I got there and saw the tables, I knew I was in trouble. Through the window, I saw the white cloth tablecloths. I saw the servers with white dress shirts and black ties. But I had my fish and chips…

I got in and even though I didn’t have reservations they found a table for me near the bar. The wait staff was excellent. But before I even saw the menu, I knew this was going to be pricy and “fancy” and they didn’t disappoint. Issue 1. There was no Fish & Chips on the menu, so I now had to find something else and just about everything was “designer” food.

Since the company is paying for this, I’m on a bit of a budget so I’m not going to abuse them by ordering a $40 Filet Mignon. So how about a nice chicken breast? “sauteed and stuffed with goat cheese, roasted poblano mashed potatoes, tomatillo sauce, and grilled acorn squash”. Perhaps you’re going “Yum” but I’m going “ick”. Goat cheese? Why cant they use a nice cheddar?

I ended up with the safest sounding thing on the menu — pork tenderloin. But it was to be served with braised red cabbage with pear, bacon and blue cheese and sweet potato fires (I’ve tried sweet potatoes. I know I don’t like them. Its a texture thing.). Blue cheese? That stuff is everywhere. So I got my tenderloin with just mashed potatoes. I knew that was even going to be an issue since they would probably be those “roasted poblano” things. What’s wrong with plain potatoes mashed with butter? Thats what I learned to eat 5 years ago.

While waiting for the meal, the waiter brought some bread to the table. It was a cold roll about the size of a computer mouse or a little smaller. I looked at the table and he had put a small plate with butter on it. The butter pad was the same size as the roll. I knew this was going to be a meal that was too much for what I got.

In a fairly timely manner, the meal showed up (I said the staff was good). There was the mashed potatoes, some cooked asparagus sticks and the tenderloins soaking in some cream colored sauce. The amount of food was decent, but it was clearly gourmet and that means me turning my nose up at it.

The potatoes where green and brown from whatever was mixed in them…. It must have been that roasted poblano. I tasted them and if I had to eat them I probably could, but it really wasn’t wetting my palette. You probably would have loved them. I didn’t even try the asparagus. I don’t eat it anyway and I really hate cooked vegetables anyway — slimy. Its a texture thing. So on to the pork.

This was not the expected “de-boned Pork Chop” but rather a port roast sliced into medallions that are around a half-dollar in size and about a half-centimeter thick and there were about 10 of them. I took the first one, an end piece, and scrapped as much of the sauce off of it as I could. It wasn’t bad actually. It was rather sweet but I was concerned about what the black, green and red “floaties” were in the sauce. I took the steak knife they provided, a very fancy looking knife and tried to cut the medallions into smaller bites. This steak knife tore the pork rather than cutting it. It was as sharp as the butter knife on the table. Fancy… who needs it.

By the end of the meal, I had finished the pork and I had stopped scraping the sauce off. It wasn’t bad. I ate about 5 bites of the potatoes and I got my check and headed out.

The meal wasn’t worth the $20 to me. I’m sure other patrons feel that its a good deal. I think I’ll order pizza tomorrow night.