Another year OLDER

I had a Birthday!

It was about two weeks ago, and I had a grand ole time. I, of course, didn't work. Even I did work down here I'd make sure I connived the day off. Out of all my very many birthdays I've only had to work on 5 of them over the decades.

So, like, what did I do? The hardest thing was cleaning the pool (dumb ducks!!!!). I then spent 3 hours straight in the pool, ahhhhh... bliss... Needless to say, I was rather tired after that, so then a long nap was on order. I didn't even have to cook for the clan that night (wife is wonderful), and then fell asleep in front of a movie.

Presents were opened in the mid-morning once everyone was up. I got some great stuff: One of the Legends of The Tour dvds --the Lance one, a great Italian cookbook that's also a travel book about the various Italian regions --the recipes are very authentic, not westernised at all--, a 1 gig mp3 player (I'm currently listening to Hobo Jim followed by Johnny Cash), and an iTunes card so I can load up goodies on the mp3 (if you can't figure out the file conversion then too bad for you).

Why did I want an mp3 player? Ain't I supposed to be a geriatric dinosaur (like my dad)? Hell, my mobile doesn't even take pictures! I wanted it cus when we are in the back doing computer stuff, my wife and my bro-in-law need to concentrate on their work. I, however, just dink around with 3d programs and I like to have some music on. Headphones from Zues (my computer) don't cut it cus I get up and wander aimlessly around the clan house so I thought an mp3 player would be a great birthday pressie --I was RIGHT!

Oh, don't worry about my hearing, I have it turned down so that I can hear everyone and have conversation --it really is good background stuff. Note to self: rip the LOTR cds to mp3!


Scene break:

How's that for a transition? Coming up over the next few posts will the saga of the ducks in my pool --stay tuned!


Food Stuff:

Deep fried goodness! Oh, come on now, doesn't everything taste better when tossed in hot oil with or without some type of coating? Hell, I've even deep fried sushi --TRUE (personally, I like it better raw and yes, I make damned good sushi).

Today though, you get a wonderful batter that'll fry a variety of things. I was cleaning out the fridge the other day, and had a little of this and a little of that. I thought for lunch I should deep fry the bits and see which ones come out best --for some reason, no one else in the clan house was as excited about this lunch as I was... hmmmmm...

Anyways, I decided that a good, thick, egg batter would be best. Before I give you the batter recipe, let me list the things I was deep fryin':

pickled mussels
camenbert cheese
metwurst
brie cheese
crab meat
feta cheese
blood sausage (black pudding)
bleu cheese


Ahem, yes, I like to eat... As you can tell, I needed a versatile batter (definitely not breading). It turns out, the feta was BEST, followed very closely by everything else. Hey, I am a deep frying King --been doing it a while.

The batter:

half flour/half polenta (corn meal will do) --about 3/4 cup each
salt
ground white pepper
milk powder (a tbsp or two)
1 tbsp dried basil
1 tsp powdered coriander
1 tsp powdered cumin
2 eggs
enough water to make a good, thick batter.

Mix it all together, then use.

Oh, if you use a good, wide wok, then you only need an inch of oil. I use olive oil for everything except deep frying, for that I use sunflower oil.

As I said, the deep fried feta was great, but so was everything else (the mussels were a close second).

Hmmmm, maybe I should tell you how to make deep fried, soft boiled eggs sometime (it's a vietnamese thing).