On any Sunday 08/10/08

[Billy's Little Trip]

I've got a very large Tri-Tip that has been marinating overnight in my simple and favorite recipe of soy sauce, red wine, extra virgin olive oil, fresh pressed garlic, green onion, brown sugar, black pepper and fresh herbs. No exacts, just a thing of love. It will be slow cooked on the Q with hickory chips, then after it's perfectly done to a medium rare, I will let it rest for about 10 minutes, then put in on my slicer on a very thin slice. After sliced, I like to take half and mix it with my BBQ sauce and leave the other half for those that don't like the BBQ sauce.
Now I cut about a dozen French rolls in half, brush them with garlic butter, put them on the hot smoky grill until they are perfectly toasted, stack them on a tray and ring my triangle.

Some like a BBQ tri-tip sandwich with mayo, or wet BBQ sauce, maybe cheese, tomato or onion. I'm simple, I like mine already mixed in BBQ sauce, then a nice slather of cream style horseradish and BAM, that's it. Sometimes I'll put fire roasted peppers on it too. But I'm happy with BBQ'd meat on a garlic butter toasted roll, done.

QOTW: How was everyones week after all the dust settled? Tell us in the form of a 1, 2, 3, etc list. BUT, only list the good things. This may be hard for some of you, but force yourself to put at least ONE good thing that happened this past week. Even if it was just a great turkey and swiss for lunch on Tuesday.

1. Top of my list. My Niece got married on 08/08/08. It was a nice wedding and reception.
2. Everyone in the Family is healthy and doing well.
3. I did in fact have a great turkey club on Tueday from one of my favorite old delis that I never get to anymore. Every slice of meat is made by them in their own smokers, slow cookers, etc. A very rare thing this day and age.
4. I closed a huge deal on 4 pools and a spa for 5 model homes that will start the middle of this month. The development is a 135 home neighborhood that will be built in 4 phases and my company name will be in the paper work for the new homeowners for those interested in getting a pool in their new backyard. The good news is that I'll get paid on the model pools right away. The bad part is that real estate is selling slow and these 4 phases will probably sell over a period of a year. Ooops!
Yeah, I thought it would be funnier to cross it out instead of delete it. I can't believe I couldn't get through my list without a negative comment slipping out, lol.

Your turn.

[blue]

1: I corrected some numbnut's spelling of "fazes" to "phases" on the internet and was pretty proud of myself.
2: And built the kid a skateboard ramp.
3: And played 3 games of laser tag, winning zero.
4: And won $250 at poker last night.
5: And drank quite a bit of mostly decaf coffee.
6: And reviewed the fight!

[king_arthur]

I got several old LPs transferred over to CD / MP3 format
One of the McLarens won the Hungarian Formula 1 race after the Ferrari that was running away from everybody melted down three laps from the end.
I ordered and gave to the Mrs. tickets to the "So You Think You Can Dance" live show tour... sort of an early birthday present for her, she has really enjoyed the show
We dogsat two dogs for some friends and it all went well...
We saw "Space Chimps" and went for Rubio's fish tacos.
Got my mom to two doctor's appointments this week and both went pretty well... it turns out that when she had a little fall last week, she didn't actually break her arm; what they were seeing on the x-rays was an old break from about 40 years ago...
Got to my doctor and other than hearing that my blood pressure is way too high, I seem to be in reasonably decent shape. Got started on blood pressure medicine. I knew this was coming, just kept putting off doing anything about it. BP pills do not contain any warnings about not drinking alcohol while taking these pills
The Mrs. got a call to go substitute on Monday, which means I'll have most of a day of "home alone" time to put together a song for next month's tuneflow - one of their titles is "Good to Be King," I figured I gotta do it...
Finally got around to watching "An American In Paris"

Good topic, I needed to remind myself of all the good stuff. Headed for a nap now, then a couple shopping stops and a stop at my mom's, and that'll do it for the day...

Charles (KA)

[Billy's Little Trip]

5. Was kindly helped with my spelling on the introwebz and knew it didn't look quite right.

[Bjam]

here we'll be, raising our voices in haaaarmony. Fucking Footloose.

My week was spectacular.

1. Saw Andrew Bird and The New Pornographers at The Electric Factory last night. Super awesome live show. I also saw the music teacher I interned with at a local middle school at the concert completely wasted as it was his birthday. Fantastic.
2. I've now gathered everything I need for college. Except for cups. I have a single bedroom in a suite with 4 other girls. Two bathrooms, full kitchen and living room, 2 double rooms and a single. Best dorming ever. But this meant I had to buy pans and knives and kitchen utensils. Not too big an issue, but it feels weird asking a sales person, "Oh, I need a kitchen knife for college, any recommendations?" Lots of funny looks. I got an awesome one in Macys that was originally ~$70 and down to $19.99!
3. Got a shiny red laptop for college. My old one had started shutting down randomly and would stop playing music after 2-3 hours, requiring a reboot. But this new one is lovely.
4. I got really cute new shoes...
5. Been doodling about with a song idea for the past week's SF, but it didn't end up working with the title. So I might just put it together as a non-SF song. I want the new title to go up so I can wrangle out a new song.
6. I leave in 2.5 weeks for college and I cannot waaaait. Although I still need to figure out what to do with my music stuff. I can't take a full record-y set-up with me, so I guess I'll have to buy a little mixer and take that along with a SM-58 or something. Some company needs to come up with a cheap but good quality compact recording bundle.

[Niveous]

My week was spent in Annapolis at a business conference. The negatives were the very long presentations that ran from 8-6 (yikes). But I got to see some of my friends. I didn't get to go out with HInc though (that night I had to go out with the co-workers). And it sucks living in a hotel for a week. So in the end, it was an okay week.

[roymond]

1. My wife doesn't have cancer.
2. The kids' cousins are visiting from London and they love that.
3. The rest is just icing.

[Spud]

The bad part is that real estate is selling slow and these 4 phases will probably sell over a period of a year

How is that the bad part? You've got work for a year.

[Caravan Ray]

I just got back from a weekend in Mordor.

aka Tongariro World Heritage Area. Mt Ngauruhoe was used as Mt Doom in the Lord Of The Rings movies, and many of the Mordor scenes were shot on Mt Ruapehu.

Ruapehu is also the North Islands biggest ski area - and one of the world's most active volcanoes. There are signs everywhere telling you the best places to hide should streams of bubbling lava start coming at you.

I impressed all with my remarkable snow-boarding skills. There are few more majestic sights in nature than seeing an overweight, middle-aged man wrapped in multi-coloured gortex attempting to slide down a hill with a plank of wood strapped to his feet.

But the coolest thing about Ruapehu is that the ski area is called Whakapapa. And with Maori names, the letters "Wha" are always pronounced "Fu". I am curious to know what happens up there on Father's Day.

[Billy's Little Trip]

The bad part is that real estate is selling slow and these 4 phases will probably sell over a period of a year

How is that the bad part? You've got work for a year.

Opps! Yes, that's not bad at all. I meant to say they will sell 1 phase per year, so over a 4 year period. But getting back to your statement, yes, work for the next 4 years, even better. But in the past, a community that size would sell every phase in a matter of a week and even though the houses wouldn't even get built for months after they purchase it, I'd already have a contract signed to meet on designs as soon as they move in. Money in the bank. Also, when the second phase goes up for sale, they are higher priced than the first phase. This makes the first phase buyers loosen up because they see the money they made from the time they bought. I build the model home pools for very little profit to get the opportunity to get the first plug with the new buyers. In the past it's worked out great. So I hope this one goes good as well. I'll also have my company logo/name on a tile plaque that will be plastered into the top step of the model pools, so even the looky loos will see my name. The contract restricts having my phone number on the plaque, but for good reason, it would look cheap and ugly. I wouldn't want that on one of my pools. But, I will keep my cards well stocked in the sales office with perks for the agents. Referral fees are magical.

[fluffy]

BLT, your steak marinade sounds horrifically overcomplicated. Did it come out at all well at least? Personally I prefer doing my steak with a simple salt and cracked pepper crust, and then to make a pan sauce with red wine, mushrooms, shallots, and a little bit of butter. Or with cognac if I feel like risking burning my kitchen down.

qotw sounds suspiciously like the status reports I have to write biweekly at work, but here goes:

1. Rewrote some of the memory handling stuff in our app which will simplify a lot of our code
2. Wrote a simple app to demonstrate part of the system, discovered some pretty major issues with said part of the system (which I wrote), fixed those issues, now that part of the system also runs a lot better and does more useful stuff
3. Made more progress on unpacking/cleaning my new place, and got to the point that I could actually cook again. Made an awesome steak au poivre with a cognac cream sauce, which could have potentially burnt my kitchen down what with the quite spectacular fireball it produced (note to self: turn OFF the vent hood before putting highly-flammable liquor into a hot pan).
4. Bought a new bicycle and settled into a very nice 3-mile bike ride for my commute
5. Drew two more comics for next week which lead to finally getting to the next part of the story
6. Finally stumped BLT at a Song Fight Band Name Literalism
7. Posted to a DRC thread for the first time in a while

[HeuristicsInc]

Good news, roy!

CR, did you get photos of the lava signs? That would be something to see.

I didn't get to go out with HInc though (that night I had to go out with the co-workers).

Bah! Ya slacker. You should probably have reminded me, we might have had more time off to change the night.

Umm, last week?
1. Spent half the week with my family at Mt. Desert Island (Acadia Nat'l Park) in Maine. Lovely. Though a bit rainy. I like it there.
2. Started a new subproject at work. Read a lot.
3. I guess there isn't a 3. The weekend was fun, but this question didn't refer to weekend.
-bill

[Spud]

QOTD:

1. Good band practice Wednesday night (drummer showed up for the second time in a row - always good).
2. Completed auction catalog in time for auction Saturday night. 24 artists paint for 24 hours, then 9 hours later, there's an auction of the work created. We have to photograph the work and publish a catalog in time for the auction. It's a beast.
3. Good progress on new ground-level deck.
4. Got a really stupid project out of the way at work, so that I can move onto something more worthwhile.
5. Sorted two boxes of cables in the studio, hung them on the wall according to function.

That's about it.

[Billy's Little Trip]

BLT, your steak marinade sounds horrifically overcomplicated. Did it come out at all well at least? Personally I prefer doing my steak with a simple salt and cracked pepper crust, and then to make a pan sauce with red wine, mushrooms, shallots, and a little bit of butter. Or with cognac if I feel like risking burning my kitchen down.

Yeah, I like your method as well, when I'm not doing a backyard BBQ thing. That marinade I do is very easy. It's my version of teriyaki because I don't like most of the pre bottled stuff because it's too salty and not enough soy flavor. And yes, it came out great! Melts in your mouth. I have an electric deli slicer, so I slice it up paper thin for sandwiches. While the tri-tip is resting after I pull it out of the smoker, I grill onions, red, green and yellow pepper, slather up french rolls with garlic butter and grill them too. My god it is fantastic! I said yesterday that I never put much on my tri-tip sandwich, but I had a change of heart yesterday. Mine were assembled with Swiss cheese, grilled onions and peppers and tri-tip, of course. I ate way to much.
I like to make an extra one, wrap it in foil and stick it in the fridge for the next day, which I did. But I got the munchies around 1:00am, and ate it. SO good, but I know what happens when I eat a lot of meat too late, I have endless nightmares and very vivid dreams. I had 3 almost exactly the same dreams that someone broke into my Silverado and was stealing my stereo system. WTF!

[blue]

duuuuuuuuuuuuude the world's best teryaki sauce is the easy to make:

half a pot of soy sauce
crapton of sugar
buncha sliced ginger
buncha tiny diced garlic
couple shots of mirin

boil it, taste it, add sugar till it's as sweet as you like it, cook it some more until it's candy, apply liberally

[fluffy]

A couple shots of mirin? Fuck that. Equal parts soy sauce, sake, and sugar, bring to a boil, add minced ginger and garlic.

[Caravan Ray]

CR, did you get photos of the lava signs? That would be something to see.

Would it? OK - next time I'll get a photo. (Apparently we will be going back. Frequently. My wife is a very keen skier. I suspect that is mostly behind our move to NZ. I can take it or leave it. I prefer the tropics and scuba diving and surfing type stuff)

Anyway - till then - here is some video of the Lahar Alarm going off on Whakapapa.:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXX0U1kt6sY

The Warning recording on this makes me wonder a bit. I mean, I know what a "lahar" is - but I studied geology at university. I wonder how many casual, non-Kiwi skiiers would actually know what they are being warned about here?

[Billy's Little Trip]

A couple shots of mirin? Fuck that. Equal parts soy sauce, sake, and sugar, bring to a boil, add minced ginger and garlic.

duuuuuuuuuuuuude the world's best teryaki sauce is the easy to make:

half a pot of soy sauce
crapton of sugar
buncha sliced ginger
buncha tiny diced garlic
couple shots of mirin

boil it, taste it, add sugar till it's as sweet as you like it, cook it some more until it's candy, apply liberally

What's with all this boiling crap? That ruins it. The only time any cooking should take place is after the meat that you marinated is being cooked. Even when I'm making a teryaki glaze, I start by making my simple syrup, let it cool completely, then add the soy sauce. To each his own I guess. I just don't like the taste of cooked soy if I'm drizzling it over rice, etc.

[fluffy]

You need to dissolve the sugar. Boiling it for a couple minutes won't "cook" the soy sauce any further than it was "cooked" by fermentation. By having the sauce hot when you add the garlic and ginger, it'll also help to draw out more of the flavors into the sauce.

Also, a proper teriyaki glaze is a glaze which you put on the meat while it's cooking, not something you marinade it in. You want the glaze to be thick at the outset.

Of course, you think red wine is a suitable ingredient for a teriyaki so I don't need to listen to your alleged advice.

[Caravan Ray]

A couple shots of mirin? Fuck that. Equal parts soy sauce, sake, and sugar, bring to a boil, add minced ginger and garlic.

Fuck mirin!! Fuck you! Don't skimp in the mirin. And by "minced ginger and garlic" I hope you don't mean those abominations that come out of jars. Fresh ginger and garlic only - you cheap, short-cutting bastard.

[HeuristicsInc]

wow, a flame war over teriyaki sauce. the internet really does have everything!
-bill

[Billy's Little Trip]

Of course, you think red wine is a suitable ingredient for a teriyaki so I don't need to listen to your alleged advice.

It's my twist on it. Don't knock it until you try it. Keep in mind, I've been doing this a long time and I've used, and use, a variety of ingredients for different purposes. I stand by what I say. The minute that you boil soy sauce, it becomes something else that I don't care for.
With that said. I will make a thicker soy sauce when I want it to hang on a bit better to noodles, etc, by making a rue and adding a small amount of soy sauce to a simmer. Then after it cools, I whisk in more soy until I get my consistency. It's a great way to thicken without changing the flavor too much.