THE GURGLING COD

Voices Carry

Once again, many thanks to Uncle "The Malcolm McLaren of Dorkwave" Grambo, for outstanding achievements in the field of Cod pimping.  Also, thanks to Uncle for digging up the Detroit radio bumpersticker archive. The internet is not just for people to share pictures of their cats, or to look at ladies sitting on birthday cakes,  or to say dumb stuff about Bacos, but also for useful things, like an archive of WRIF sticker variants.  The Cod spent some time in Bradyland in his formative years, and it is good too see WLLZ,  WJLB, and even WWWW represented and representing. If anyone knows of a similar archive for Boston, I would be happy to contribute--still have one unaffixed WCOZ sticker in the safe deposit box, next to the rare red WBCN variant. More importantly, I would offer a handsome reward to anyone who can furnish me with a V66 sticker--the late, lamented home for UHF video bestness for the uncabled. Pour some out for New Man, Lizzie Borden & the Axes, and Ball and Pivot, why don'tcha?    

Exactly

Now, that's what I'm talking about.

Delicious

The wonders of Flickr's Boring Images. Germans. One of these balconies would be an excellent place to smoke a brisket, of which more soon. Also, the CSA I joined had its first pickup yesterday, yes, on 4/20. Duuuude! They have just completed the process to be the first certified organic farm in the Upstate--yet, in the salad they had  as a tasting item at the pickup, Bacos were featured.  Ba-cos. Evidently, we are dealing with the Community Supported Ag version of the "one of those ex-felon, pro-acid kind of non-smoking homes." In any case, please  be careful out there.

Jump on it

While you mull your restaurant slash fiction, head on over to  Soul Sides. Mr. O-Dub has the musical annotation to Michaelangelo Matos' history of "Apache." In a perfect world, the Cod would now be reunited with the full 12" of "Breakdance" by the West Street Mob, but this obsessive tracking down of the iterations of this song over about 40 years is exactly the kind of thing that Al Gore invented the Internet for. Also, Mr. Matos' contribution to the 33 1/3 series for Sign o' The Times is a good place to begin with that promising, but uneven series. Despite what TMFTML says, avoid the Let it Be entry from the Decemberists guy, which is the most disappointing of the lot.

Big if

If Le Bernardin took Bubba Gump's Shrimp Company as an illicit amour, the precocious, spirited love child might look like this.

Keep reading for the Zissou reset, and this:

It has the flexibility of a yogi master, the balance of a Romanian gymnast. And it cinches the verdict: Laurent Tourondel is back in the swim.

And:

On his main stage above, he jump-starts a meal in a populist, clever manner. First up is a complementary heap of deep-fried rock shrimp in the drag of Buffalo-style chicken wings, a tangy red sauce slathered over them, a pool of blue cheese spread below them and wooden forks as thin as ice cream sticks rising up from the irresistible pile.

I had to read that stretch several times to figure out that "the drag"  did not mean something like "dredged," but actually that fried shrimp served like chicken wings were like transvestites. I welcome your thoughts on what would happen if restaurants could have sex with each other  in the comments.

Smoke

Ew.

Tuscan Soul Tacos

Long ago, I was full of bluster about my big pork shoulder plans. I had planned to tweak a successful recipe from the River Cafe Cookbook, a favorite in our home.* Crispy skin, tender meat, suffuses home with aroma of a Tuscan trattoria. Thought I could improve the recipe with a brine. Hell, Christopher Kimball brines everything, even his in-laws. The planned Cook's 6 hr brine turned into a 24 hr brine, but I was unconcerned. Otherwise, I followed the procedure I had in the past-40 minutes or so at high heat, smear with a paste of lemon, garlic, fennel, red pepper, and olive oil, lower to as low as it goes, and cook til the bones twist right out, being careful to keep enough liquid in the pan to keep the drippings from turning back. All went according to plan until the removal. The flesh was tender enough, but not unctuous--almost flaky, sort of like well-done salmon or tuna. Strange things afoot, brinewise. As the shoulder is pretty un-lean naturally, it is poss the brine did more to leach out juice than to restore a semblance of juiciness and flavor to one of those scary pig-as-modern-pentathlete cuts like the loin or chop. The skin, also, was as rugged as a 3"GI Joe. I blame the brine. If I were Kimball, I would make 70 more, each brined for a different period, then feed them to my serfs. (The secret of consistent, cracker-like skin on roast pork is one of my major frustrations as a cook. Once, I attained the "pork candy" ideal Sam Sifton describes in re the caja china, and I was so pleased I hardly minded that it was in Queens, and the same night that the Red Sox dropped game 3  of the 2004 ALCS 19-8  to go down 3-0.)  Anyway, efforts have been ongoing to exhaust this internally toothsome, but not compelling hoard of pork. In a fit of perverse desperation, I decided to desecrate one of my favorite chef's recipes, a lightning-quick chiffonade of collard greens with a balsamic reduction. It goes like this:

brown some mashed garlic in a slug of oil in a skillet, add a hot pepper or two you make a big roll of de-stemmed collard leaves, slice into thin ribbons (imagine cutting the end off of a cigar, over and over). Sizzle the collards in the oil until they turn a brighter green, 2-3 minutes, then add maybe 1/3 c. of balsamic--utility balsamic is fine, and continue cooking until greens are almost dry.

My "refinement" was to add several handfuls of chopped pork at the initial stage, which brings the process back closer to the usual accompaniment of collards w/ pork, but without the endless stewing. I had earlier drained and defatted the drippings, and had blended the fennely drippings with some stock, and returned a bit of the fat to the mix. The pork and the collards came together nicely with the Tuscan flavor. To serve, as it was getting late, 2d polenta, aka corn tortillas, warmed in adjacent skillet, and secreted in oven. Thus, Tuscan soul tacos. Surprisingly popular in the Codhold. Diversity is important. A bonus is that the inner sanctum of the collard looks like the photo above, so you can play "Little Shop" before you compost.

Confidential to the folks who held the fake "genocide rally" today: I sent the donation to Planned Parenthood  just like I promised.

*Caveat: The River Cafe people have several nearly interchangeable UK and US editions of their cookbook in one form or another--one will do you, and it does not matter that much which one, kinda like Lyle Lovett records.

Real bad boys move in silence

The Cod  had been thinking over a post involving the vogue for rap cameos on rock songs in the early 1990s, when Grambo goes and drops the climax of the Blastmaster's rap on "Radio Song." Undeterred, Niki Lauda stizz, I will still pass this one out. Somewhere on the internets, someone invoked a category of band along the lines of "you had more than one of their albums, but in your heart you knew they were not that good." I think both of the Too Much Joy  records I own were recovered from the cutout bin, so that might be an indication that they belong in that set, but Cereal Killers still offers a reliable early 90s pop experience for those times when that's what I need. They are one of a litany of bands who must behold the success of Weezer and, to a lesser extent, Cake, with bemusement and dismay. As a bonus, the instrumental version of "9mm goes bang" from the first BDP record, which would be the one glorifying violence, and before Scott La Rock was killed as a result of just the kind of thing that they rap about on the original version of this track. Padding a CD re-release of a shorter LP by including instrumental versions of all the tracks is a lazy approach to making fans pay for CDs they already own in other formats, but here, it is preferable to the demos, ex post facto remixes by guys you have never heard of that are the usual filler: recent Ramones and X reissues, this means you.  Also, on this 9mm track, what they put in, and what they leave out of the original has the effect of making you be aware of the content of the lyrics of the song. It is like what they say Nina Gordon did w/ NWA, but it does not abandon the effort after the first verse, and is not a dance-floor-emptier. 

Too Much Joy, "Good_Kill" Cereal Killers, Giant, 1991
Boogie Down Productions "9mm Goes Bang," (Instrumental) Criminal Minded +Instrumentals, Landspeed, 2001

My Thickburger brings all the boys to the yard

The Cod is troubled by the FF Nation backlash that seems to be pimping the most unhealthy fast food as "old school."  The predictable outcries, summarized here,  have elicited an equally predictable reaction from he-men like this.  The "nanny state" argument is hogwash, considering that the criticism of Hardee's is that the campaign and the product is irresponsible, and bad, not illegal. We live in a free society, mostly, still, but to encourage bad choices is, well, bad.  Somehow,  inexplicable denunciations of "food porn" do not seem like the answer, as the Thickburger consumer is unlikely to read the press releases of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. Also, the gist of the problem is not the exploitative images of cheeseburgers, but cheeseburgers themselves. The concern is filth, not representations of filth.  A more cogent, target-demographic-resonating argument might run like this:
"When you think about it, A Frisco Thckburger sounds pretty gay, doesn't it?"
Music and relatively wholesome food content soon.

Open Letter to Raccoons

Stay tuned as I pick up on Uncle's early 90s KRS guest spots reset, and pull together all of the threads of This Week In Pork. For now, and of more urgency, a some advice for raccoons. If you want to work the cute, opposable thumb and bandit mask thing, do not, please, do not limp in and out of concrete sewer grates in broad daylight. No one wants to say "that was the gulliest raccoon I ever saw." This advice is based on recent, personal experience. The future for raccoons is cute, nocturnal and arboreal, not grim, diurnal, and subterranean. Trust me.