cooking

#994: An A5 Canada Day

RECORD STORE TALES #994: An A5 Canada Day

From Jen and I here at LeBrain HQ, we hope you had an excellent Canada Day.  For us, we did things a little differently this time, and it turned out aces!

First, I awoke early and began work at 6:00 AM on two separate projects.  Musically:  the hinted-at, overdue Kiss project that I have been working on and must be finished!  This is a collaboration with new contributor Jonathan Lee.  We have taken on the challenge of ranking all 24 Kiss albums, and we (coincidentally!) wrote about 3650 words each.  We were in synch with verbosity, but not rankings!  The final lists will be dropped simultaneously in two posts on July 5, next week!  It was Jonathan who challenged me to take him up on this project and I think you will like what we both came up with.  It took a few hours to format everything right, but by the end of the morning, I had the lists ready to rock.

In conjunction with this, I was seasoning my new cast iron pan.  This had to be done in preparation for our Canada Day dinner’s main course:  a genuine Japanese A5 wagyu steak from the Miyazaki prefecture.  This expensive piece of meat is unlike I have ever cooked before, and I had something of a sleepless, anxious night overthinking it.

By morning, I had a plan.  The wagyu was going in the cast iron pan with some butter, garlic, onions, peppers, portobello mushrooms, and asparagus.  Therefore I needed to season the pan in the oven beforehand, and I spent several hours on that while also working on the Kiss lists.  For never having done it before, I think it turned out pretty well.  Its surface became smoother, and water beaded off.

In the afternoon we headed over to my parents house to use their new barbecue.  You see, having never cooked wagyu before, we decided to bring some backup steaks.  I was going to cook them on the barbecue the normal way, while doing the wagyu in the pan.  Meanwhile, Jen was roasting veggies in the oven with enormous amounts of butter and hand-diced garlic.  The garlic was intense, but to die for.  Her potatoes, carrots and asparagus were amazing.

Timing was everything.  We started at 4:00 PM with the veggies.  By 4:35 the barbecue was warming up for the backup steaks.  Meanwhile, the cast iron pan was warming up in the oven.

Finally, the moment I had been waiting for all week.  The moment that kept me up the previous night.  The moment of truth!  The wagyu was, as all the Youtube videos promised, delicate to the touch.  The fat began melting as soon as I touched it.  Although everyone seems to have different rules about it, I elected to keep the wagyu in the fridge as long as possible to minimise the premature melting of fat.  Then I seasoned with salt and pepper to taste.  In hindsight I could have gone a teeny tiny bit heavier on the salt and pepper, but you can always add that after the fact as well.

The cast iron came out of the oven and onto a hot burner.  Into the pan went a generous amount of butter and my veggies including several cloves of garlic.  A few minutes later, things were smelling wonderful and I flipped the steak – not before touching the handle of the pan with my bare hands though!  Fortunately it had cooled enough that I didn’t burn myself.  These new cooking techniques take some getting used to.  After a couple more minutes I removed the wagyu from the pan, and let it rest.  When sliced, it was somewhere between rare and medium rare, which was what I was aiming for.  Meanwhile our backup steaks were also ready at a perfect medium rare.  It was 5:00 by the time everything was done and rested.

 

A wagyu steak is a sharing steak.  It is simply too rich to eat like a normal steak.  I served up some portions for each of us, and we delighted in eat bite.  Some went with carrots – Jen’s favourite combination.  I enjoyed the wagyu with the portobello mushrooms, or a clove of garlic.  Because it is so rich, we tended to pair it with other things on the plate.  The cast iron did a nice job of creating a beautiful caramelizing on the vegetables.  The wagyu had a great sear.  The pan also cleaned up easily afterwards.  No stick.  I must have seasoned it right?

We barely touched the backup steaks (they will go into another meal) and we finished just over half of the wagyu.  This is what I expected.  I wonder what that wagyu will become tomorrow?  A stir fry, most likely.  Wagyu stir fry.  Looking forward to it — and many more meals with my new cast iron pan.

Having enjoyed wagyu at one of the best steakhouses in Toronto, my own steak stacked up well.  I would rank them just about equally.  Theirs had more seasoning, but our side dishes surpassed theirs by far.  Miles.  No comparison.  Our sides were incredible.  Modesty?  This is me being modest!  And all told, our meal was about a third of the price of the steakhouse.  With  more steak and more leftovers.  Jen and I both worked hard Canada Day, and it paid off.  Best meal we ever made, and we did it as a team!  She picked up all the meat, veggies, and even the pan.  We timed everything perfectly.  It went so well that we determined we don’t need backup steaks next time.

With the Kiss project, Stranger Things, and a massive dinner taking up my time, it was the end of the Canada Day before I realized, “Hey, I haven’t listened to any Canadian music today”.  So my friends, here’s some Max the Axe.  Turn it up.

Sunday Chuckle: Microwave Cuisine

The steel mill where I work has been there for decades.  As we clean it nooks and crannies preparing for closure, we keep unearthing the funniest stuff.  One that that work places have to do is replace microwave ovens every few years.  I guess they used to package coobooks specific to the microwave with them many years ago.  From underneath who-knows-what, we excavated the two books seen below.  (The more recent of the two below was dated 1994, the other had no date.  Can you guess by the graphic design which is the book from 1994?)

I find them hilarious.  Microwave specific recipes!  I either a) just reheat stuff or n) follow the instructions on the box!  Mmmmmm!  Look at that…roll of something?  Salmon?  Looks like salmon.  Mmm, microwaved salmon.

 

 

#838.5: Father’s Day 2020

Father’s Day 2020 was one of the strangest yet, but we celebrated my dad outdoors with steaks and social distancing.

The day started quietly with an espresso at dawn, but I couldn’t wait to get cooking.  Jen bought steaks and corn.  I love cooking and I especially love barbecuing.  Cooking for my mom and dad is one of the best hobbies I have.

The morning was spent relaxing by myself on the patio, reading Gord Downie and Jeff Lemire’s graphic novel Secret Path, the story of Chanie Wenjack.  I spoke about this book a bit on Saturday’s live stream.  To say reading this book was an intense undertaking is to sell the experience short.  I had to stop twice to catch my breath.  This powerful, true story is made so clear, so intense and spiritual thanks to the words of Gord and the images of Jeff.  A book/album review is absolutely forthcoming.  (Even though the book comes with a download of the Gord Downie album, I still bought the CD individually as well.)

It was a hot afternoon but at least my parents have a back deck with some shade.  I lit the gas and let the flames do their work.  I incorporated some new techniques that I picked up watching YouTube videos over the winter.  I let the steaks get up to room temperature, then patted them dry and seasoned with just salt, pepper and garlic powder.  Nothing fancy and no marinate was necessary.   I overcooked mine a bit for my liking.  Everybody else likes them a bit more done than me.  I forgot how hot my dad’s barbecue can get.  But they were still juicy and flavourful, I just prefer them a little more red.

We chatted current events, the cottage, and Uncle Don Don.  My mom saved for me what was left of his CD collection (I gave my sister first dibs and she took Frank Zappa’s Hot Rats.)  Mom asked me to sort through the music, but I decided to take them home to do that here.  The CD covers have the telltale yellowing of a smoker’s home and I didn’t want to handle them and have to prepare dinner too.

There are a few CDs here that I’ll have to keep.  I’m missing several Tragically Hip.  I don’t have that Lee Aaron (her debut).  I could probably use some Johnny Winter, George Thorogood, Garbage, and Jane’s Addiction.  A few of these are duplicates; I have all the Deep Purple and Alice Cooper albums.  But those are two bands that Uncle Don influenced me to get into.  “Child In Time”, he said.  That was the song he praised.  He has two versions of “Child In Time” in this cardboard box.

Looks like I’m going to be owning Jackyl, Haywire and Collective Soul too.  Cool.  I’ll go through the box in detail in the coming days.

My dad enjoyed his Father’s Day meal, and we had a nice visit.  The first one in many months.  It wasn’t hard to stay sanitised and distant, but it was different.  Just something we have to live with for a while.  Hopefully not too much longer.  I’m starting to get tired of the same old scenery from my little patio at home.  I want to get back to the lake.  Because of various health concerns and vulnerabilities, we’ve all agreed that we can’t all be at the same cottage at the same time, so we’ll have to take turns.  I’ll have to wait a little while longer to cook my dad a nice barbecue chicken dinner (skin on, of course). It’ll happen though — eventually.

I hope all the fathers had as nice a Father’s Day as my dad did.

 

 

 

#754: High Steaks at Huron Lake

GETTING MORE TALE #754: High Steaks at Huron Lake

A lot changed in 10 months.

We haven’t been to the lake since last July.  Then Jen’s mom got sick and we spent the rest of the summer driving to and from Toronto, and in hospitals.  Then before we knew it, she was gone.

As part of the healing process, Jen and I have been aching to get back to the cottage.  Her mom loved it here, and she never made it again, though she really wanted to. We’d drive up with her mom in the back seat reading a book.  Every once in a while, I’d look in the mirror and see her, eyes closed, snoozing in the back.  Or so it appeared.

“Jen, look.  Your mom’s sleeping.”

Then suddenly before Jen could see, Mum’s eyes would open.  “I can hear you Michael and I’m not sleeping.  I’m resting my eyes.”

We’d laugh.

Finally we were going back. We packed our bags for the lake, and I spent an hour or so loading music onto a flash drive for the ride.  Specially curated of course, and including the newest hits like Flesh & Blood by Whitesnake.  I have so many flash drives, however, that I made the mistake of loading the one with the little Autobot symbol.  I should have thrown out that flash drive a long time ago.  It works on a computer but not in the car, not since it fell in a puddle a while ago.  We were forced to listen to another random flash drive that I had in the car, which turned out to be serendipitous.

The only album on this specific flash drive was Alice Cooper’s A Paranormal Evening at the Olympia Paris.  Our first concert together happened to be Alice Cooper, so at least it was something we’d enjoy.  “Hurricane” Nita Strauss is phenomenal on it, so I was really tuned into the guitar playing.  Jen was just rocking out and singing along.

But things sure do change in a mere 10 months, the last time I was driving those particular roads.  There is a new Tim Hortons, a few improved roadways, and some traffic lights where there were none before.

By the time Alice Cooper informed us that school was indeed out for summer, we were past Lucknow and well into the windfarms.  That meant the lake was close.  Again we laughed.  Jen’s mom hated those windfarms.  “A Liberal financial disaster,” she called them.  We tried to count the windmills on the way up and it’s all but impossible.

Finally we arrived at the cottage and smelled that country air.  A mix of pine, rain and earth.  I was napping within hours of arrival!  I knocked out good.

We always arrive at the lake prepared to entertain ourselves.  With a killer wi-fi connection (welcome to cottage life 2019) I was showing my dad scenes from Infinity War within minutes.  I also copied that faulty Autobot flash drive over to a fresh one and tossed out the original.  Won’t be making that mistake again, but recovered the Whitesnake album in the process!

I didn’t have much in terms of goals, except to relax and not let anything stress me out.  One thing I was looking forward to was cooking, so I did up a couple steaks, hot dogs, and fish for the family.  I wanted to try a couple new things this time.  First, I wanted to do one of the steaks on a wood fire instead of the barbecue.  We have not done them like that in over 25 years, but the smokiness of a real fire can add its own character to a good steak and make it perfect.  That’s what happened this time.  The steak cooked over the fire was the superior steak for flavour.  I did it to a rare, which was something else I love.  I did the fish over the wood fire too (using maple and cedar).  I chose a nice fatty piece of salmon, and a cheaper but larger fillet of Lake Huron trout; both darker fish.  I tried something different for them.  I laid down a bed of lemon slices onto the grill, and then cooked the fish on top of the lemons.  For seasoning I only used salt, pepper and a roasted garlic olive oil.  The result was a juicy, perfect fish that took longer to cook than normal but acquired all that lemony goodness right into the skin. I added more salt as I went, then I finished them directly over the flames to get the crispy skin.  Surprisingly, the lake trout was the superior tasting fish.  I’m usually a salmon guy but I haven’t eaten a trout since I was a little kid.

We had a birthday party and cake for my dad, now young at 81.  You know what my dad enjoyed more than any of that stuff?  Going to a car dealership on a Sunday and help me pick out my next vehicle.  I won’t reveal what I’ve chosen until I buy the car — stay tuned.  We took my dad’s new car there, and he showed me all the latest gadgets that I’ll be getting too. I was impressed to see that he had three USB ports!  I plugged my flash drive into one of them and treated him to some music.  Max the Axe – “Next Plane to Vegas”.

“This is my friend Uncle Meat singing,” I told him.

He listened for a bit and said, “Your friend Uncle Meat can sing.”  High praise from him!

The weather wasn’t the greatest, but we slept with the windows open and the lake air coming in — the best way to get a great rest.  And rest we did.  We ate some good cooking and came home with bellies full.  Best of all, I have some ideas for the next cookout.

The May long weekend is the official ushering in of summertime.  Welcome, summer 2019 – we’ve been expecting you!

VIDEO: The Cottage in the Woods 2

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If you missed the original story about the Cottage in the Woods, please check out Record Store Tales Part 308.

Another long weekend in Canada has come and gone.  This time we came with a side mission: visiting Condor Fine Books in Kincardine, Ontario.  We’ve been going there for years, and the owner is a really nice guy.  He has a crazy selection of old and interesting books, with a healthy section on UFOs and the paranormal.  That’s alright by me.

I hope you enjoy my latest video, with book finds and lots of scenery.

Part 308: The Cottage in the Woods (VIDEO BLOG)

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RECORD STORE TALES PART 308:  The Cottage in the Woods

As bad as the stress used to get, there was always one place I could return and truly recharge my batteries:  the cottage.

I’d pack a dozen or so CDs (tapes in the early days) and go on long walks with my Discman.  Eat some steaks.  Check out the water, rivers and funky bridges.  The phone never rang.  Heck in the early days there were no phones here.  No cable TV, no wi-fi.

Today, I created, edited and posted the video you’re about to see in one day, entirely at the cottage.  How unimaginable to me back then.

I tried to re-create the experience of being here visually — probably the most peaceful place in the world.  I hope this gives you a taste.  Enjoy