“BUCKET LIST”
Why do we have such terrible words like BLOG and BUCKET
LIST? Awful. But since you asked, the last thing on my
list to do before I extreme out of here is to make Eggplant Parmesan that is edible. I’ve been
struggling with this for many years, even when I was feeding my kids as a
single parent . Every once in a while I would try to make Eggplant Parmesan as I wanted my teen age children to
appreciate fine cuisine. I tried many recipes,
salting the hell out of them, letting the water drain out, then deep fry them,
but it always came out kind of a soggy mess, until one day the kids just went
on strike and ordered a Pizza in. That
was in about 1982. However, just the other day, my friend and neighbor Stephen
showed me his new book on cooking and behold; there was a recipe for “Perfect
Eggplant Parmesan”. Reading the message
written on his wall, I asked for a copy of it as this could be the turning
point of my life. Duly armed, I marched
home and bought the proper ingredients (Eggplant) and as soon as I got off work
next day I proceeded to chop, salt etc. just like it said. The caveat here is
that one does not fry the pieces in hot oil, but accomplishes the same end by
cooking them in the oven. (Maybe this
was just a theory?). However, by the
time they were in the oven I came to the end of the instructions as the next
page, (87) was missing with the directions of what to do once you got the
things out of the oven. Fortunately, Steve was home and delivered the missing
missile so I could finish the sauce and put it all together in a final
masterpiece. After whipping up the sauce
of tomatoes, garlic and pepper flakes I sat down and finally ate what was
supposed to be perfect E.P.. It wasn’t
half bad, except I had used too many hot pepper flakes in the sauce which kind
of inflamed the whole benign plate.
Well, my kids missed out on the whole experience but I can honestly
cross that final hurdle off my list and get on with dying. But I keep asking myself, who the hell
thought that you could eat an eggplant ; and a better question would be; why?
THE LITTLE TYKES BIRTHDAY
I do realize
customs do change but one that I have seen recently is beyond the
ken. When I had parties for my children,
it would be for about a dozen kids, and the parents would drop them off and
have a great day without the brat. But
recently my wife and I seem to be required to attend our six year old
grandaughter’s birthday party. But this really gets awkward, us old folks,
as well as our children, standing around as if watching a group of chimpanzees
in a cage having such a lot of fun, but of course it is all documented with
camcorders, iphones and aim & shoot cameras.
NEW MONEY, OLD VALUES
There is something ironic in the fact that very old
governments are necessary in order to have the understanding about changing
things like money for instance.
HANNIBAL’S ‘LIFEBOAT’ DIET 1820
As everyone seems to have such a hard time losing weight
I thought I’d help out here with a diet
Is sure fire to get you from 200 pounds to 95 pounds in
three months.
First of all, let’s identify the known generalities of
fuel required for the Human Species
body/mechanism for survival.
The minimum requirements for survival are the following; You will generally die if these are not
available.
30 days – solid foods
(Knawing on old shoes doesn’t help a whole lot. See Charley Chaplin in
Gold Rush)
3 days - Water (In
a pinch, Arabs can drink camel urine.)
3 minutes - Air
(A very few Yogis have been able to extend this to ½ hour?
3 seconds – Impressions (Surprise! According to G.I. Gurdjief)
I recently read
the story of the Whaleboat Essex, that was stove in by a pissed off Whale in
the middle of the Pacific Ocean in 1820, Melville was inspired to write his
best seller after talking to one of the few survivors of the incident. “Did you know Owin Coffin, sir?” “Know him! I
et him.”
But the big news
was how 5 out of the crew of 14 survived in a couple of flimsy boats for about
three months with virtually no supplies when leaving the sunken boat. Their Odyssey was interrupted by a small
Island but as there was virtually no water there, they had to push on. Their 3,000 mile journey was longer than the
incredible one by Capt. Bligh (Later on) but it was more luck (Karma?) than
anything else as they spent most of their time lying on the bottom of the boat,
too weak to even sit up. Although not
the first to be in this predicament, there seems to have been some protocal of
how to behave in these predicaments. The
gruesome business involved when you know all won’t make it , they will draw
lots to see who is for dinner. This ,
however, was a major problem for these men from Nantucket, as they were all
Quakers who are forbidden to kill or gamble. Now, granted,
drawing lots to see who will get killed may be less of a gamble than
murder. However, by this time, they were so God-damned hungry, it wasn’t much
of a transgression and they easily
overlooked that miner problem. But wait,
once you’ve decided who will die, you have to draw lots again (less one, of
course) to see who will kill the poor bastard.
Unfortunately, we
don’t have much of a record left by actual cannibals, although plentiful in the
Caribbean when that dirty rotten
scoundrel (It’s his fault all the
Amerindians died) Columbus arrived on the scene. But reports were that eating a
well cooked human is really a savory dish. But eating your fellow man who has
died from starvation is another matter.
First of all, there is virtually no fat on the muscle . That is why
starvers get into the bones to suck the marrow as it is mostly fat and
necessary in order to digest the
muscle.
The closest I’ve come to eating a friend is when we had to
murder our longtime friend, Tom, a huge
turkey with a magnificient fan-tail. Tom had gotten so big he had broken a leg
and that gave us an excuse to eat him.
This was no ‘Lifeboat’ situation, but he was really tasty!
An interesting
side note to this is during WW2, the Quakers set up an experiment about
starving when they had the sense to
realize that all the Death Camps would be freed when the Allies prevailed over
those dirty Germans . They set up an experiment with a few volunteers (Would
you volunteer for this?) and starved them, then figured out how to re-introduce
food to them. That could have been me ,
as I grew up during the Great Depression , I still eat like it’s the last meal
I’ll ever get. (Lamont! Chew your food, slow down!!)
Two cannibals
eating a clown; “ Does he taste funny to
you?”
THE SHAPE OF FOOTBALL
Have you ever wondered about the weird shape of a
football? It’s the perfect form to throw
an accurate pass, it is entirely unpredictable when it bounces, etc. Well, it seems the first one in 1869 was an actual pig’s bladder, why
anyone chose that is lost to history, but
it has evolved slightly and now the Scots get to eat all the bladders,
maybe. While we’re on sports, how come
all the players, (Base, Basket & foot ball are letting their facial hair
grow? It won’t be long before a
president could sport a mustache or even a full beard?
