THE GURGLING COD

All Hands on Deck = A legitimate last-minute Crassmass alternative from Red Hook + a gift for you.

(The lede got badly buried here, so just scroll down to the bottom, k?) Once again, the Cod has fallen down on his self-appointed task of collecting righteous causes and pointing out worthless kitchen crap in the hopes you will spurn the former and support the latter. But! As a gift, cards the Cod made to tuck in those fucking kettles - print on Avery 8876 business card template. They look like this. More conducive to send this to the commandants of this outfit than to yell at bellringers. That said, ask someone who has to work within earshot of one of those bells how they feel about those bells. Casual references to Salvation Army-inspired shooting sprees are off the table, obvs, but seriously, it's not easy for them. 

But I digress. In addition to emails from disgruntled  parents of fucking technically grownup college students about assaults on their special snowflakes' self-esteem by the Cod or his comrades, the email has been blowing up with desperate pleas from every last merchant the Cod has ever dealt with, imploring the purchase of electronic gift cards, for which there is still time. (I am reminded of the joke where the Catholic priest says "Yes! But is there TIME?") What a shitty gift. Seriously, just go to the ATM and pull out the amount of cash you might put on a gift card, and stick it in an envelope. 

But, if the sleigh is a little light, and you want to do something, get after All Hands On Deck, a cookbook to benefit Red Hook, the which was ravaged by Sandy (and is the new home of Rick's Picks CEO Rick.) It has cocktails and dumplings and all kinds of good stuff in it and the $ goes to help businesses that got drowned in Sandy. Is it a rival of Cooking up a Storm, considered by some to be the Citizen Kane of hurricane relief cookbooks? Gamble $15 and find out! 

A Christmas message for friends of the Autocrat of the Dinner Table

My late father, known around here as The Autocrat of the Dinner Table, was in the habit of making a tape of Christmas music that he would share with his family and friends. One of the ways that the world has changed since his passing is that most folks don't listen to cassettes much, or even have ways to play them any more. I took it upon myself to digitize them this fall, and with some help from my charming and handsome friend Daniel McCord, I was able to make a way to share them. I tried to reach people directly who got these tapes, but I thought I would mention it here for folks I forgot, or for folks who are interested. Mostly choral, with the odd Willie Nelson or Los Straitjackets track. If you would like the link, send an email to fesser at the gmails. 

Brubeck Banh Mi

I had been wanting to do this for a while, and I'm sorry that it took Dave Brubeck's death for me to get around to it. I've been a fan of banh mi for a while, doing them from scratch at home a while back, and have been messing around with various forms of charcuterie for years. One of the central spice combos for French-informed pates, etc, is quatre epice, (4 spices, if you're scoring at home). Similarly, one of the central spice combos in some Vietnamese cooking is 5 spice powder. Considering that the banh mi is a sandwich that features two types of pate* it seemed logical to do a 5 spice pate and a 4 spice pate as an hommage to the favorite jazz song of people who don't like jazz -Dave Brubeck's "Take 5," notable for being in 5/4 time. The 5-spice was a very simple shoulder/spice/potato starch prep from Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet, and the 4 spice was a riff on Polcyn and Ruhlman's pate grandmere from their charcuterie book. Worked out pretty well, though I imagine the echo of the song would not be self-evident. Play us off, Dave: 

*We will address the burgeoning problem of how some folks will basically take a dump on an Italian sub roll and call it banh mi some other time. 

Guiteau Monday, Hurricane Sandy Taco Impact ed.

Sometimes, this shit just writes itself: 

(Sm)okra and boubon, oh my!

Props to Rick's Picks for snagging the number one spot in the DI/DO gift guide. That said, and Rick is like a brother to me, The Cod cannot endorse the Smoky Burb. Love pickled okra, love bourbon, but some pleasures are meant to be enjoyed separate from some other pleasures. 

Calling all GLBTQ/Ally grinches

So, the Cod made these cards. Happy to send some, or, if you prefer, here is the doc. Download, and print on Avery 8876 Templates, and drop some knowledge on the Salvation Army. The catch is, you do actually have to make a donation to use these cards.