For a few weeks now, Mrs. Emp. and I have been wanting to try making Okonomiyaki.*  With her love of all things Japanese and my love of all things foodie, it seemed perfect.  So we bought some of the many different ingredients and set out to make a big savory cabbage filled pancake!

I'll spare you the stories of home-made Dashi (NO ONE makes their own Dashi except Iron Chefs and my wife, apparently).  Imagine a chunk of smoked, cured skipjack tuna (or bonito) that has the feel and look of a block of dense balsa wood, and one small woman's attempts to shave "curls" off of it without the traditional Katsuobushi kezuriki (think a food-grade carpenters' plane).  I don't know, maybe the bloody knuckles adds to the flavor.

So then the big moment...flour, eggs, cabbage, tenkatsu, all in a bowl, with the yummy human sacrifice Dashi mixed in.  It LOOKS like a perfect batter...and we pour it into a large fairly flat two-handled pan (like one you use to make paella) and it sizzles in nicely.**  And it sizzles...hmmmmm....   I saute the sausage separately, drain the fat and throw it in to the nicely cooking pancake.

Did I mention this thing is BIG?  And here's the rub.  We made one big, beautiful okonomiyaki.  Like 16" across.  A frisbee...no a discus of savory goodness.  Sizzling on the one side where its getting nice and brown and a touch crunchy.  And the wife says "OK....Turn it over".

How?   And there's the rub.  I got it OUT of the pan, cooked side down, on the "pizza peel" (the only flat food clean surface big enough for it).  But...getting it back into the pan...not so good.  It sort of...splooged...all over the pan...and the burners...and the stove top.

Not good at all (sigh).  It was delicious I must say.   The parts I salvaged.

Now I have to tear down the stove top and clean.  and clean.  *SIGH*

P

___________________________

*Don't know what it is?  Think savory pancake with cabbage, bacon and all sorts of yummy flavors.   There are TONS of websites about Okonomiyaki now that its become a trendy food.  This is my favorite, not so much for presentation, but information:  http://okonomiyakiworld.com/index.html

**Why, you ask, did you use the pan when you have that amazing Viking Range with a griddle built in?  Well, the pan is non-stick and we wanted to minimize oil in cooking.  And maybe I was prescient, as using the griddle would have resulted in an even BIGGER mess.  Ah, yes, dear reader, I said EVEN BIGGER. 

In Flanders Fields
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

We tend to spend Halloween quietly around here.  My wife and I usually don't go out, and more and more we spend it with family.  The reason is that my younger brother died, unexpectedly, on Halloween eve, 2004.  We spent that evening in the emergency room, and a few hours after midnight, at his bedside, just after he died.

I don't have any horrible feelings about the holiday, or the general revelry that it occasions.  I don't have a problem when friends talk about their plans or after, their wild times.  But for me, the few days leading up to the 31st of October are contemplative.  I miss him very much.

P

I just want to say appropo of nothing, if I were hiding in a box in the attic while the whole country thought I was dead or 20,000 feet in the air in a helium balloon, my father would have beaten me within an inch of my life when I showed up.

NOT SO MUCH, NOW.

Three family members, three "signature" dishes.

InsanityRanch (my wife):  spicy homemade pasta (whole wheat pasta with cracked Telichery black pepper and red pepper flakes) mixed with collard greens cooked down til they are almost crisp, and topped with capers.

The Dollgirl (my daughter):  Fresh cantaloupe, papaya and pear salad with sweetened Greek yoghurt.

Me:  Iowa cut (thick, boneless) pork chops, rubbed with "sandwich sprinkle" (salt, garlic powder, cracked black pepper, basil, oregano, rosemary, thyme and marjoram) and then brushed with agave syrup.  Grilled, so the syrup and the fat on the chops gets crispy and black. 

Oh, and fresh lemon/lime whiskey sours.

MMMMMMMMMMMMM!

I love fine woodworking.  And I love the magazine "Fine Woodworking", published by the Taunton Press.  It is full of beautiful pictures of incredibly beautiful projects, and articles about those projects, tools and personalities in wood arts all written in clever descriptive prose.   But every once in a while I run into a simple declarative English sentence that makes me pause, reread it, and realize that I'm totally removed from the cant of real woodworkers.

Used with simple shopmade templates, bushings make it easy to cut mortises, bore dowel and shelf-pin holes, and rout evenly spaced stopped dadoes in a carcase.

Without using the dictionary, you tell me what it means?

P.

If you live in North America, go outside this evening or night.  There is a rich, full late-summer moon.  And it is September 2.  This means that in 29.5 days, there will be another full moon, and we will ALMOST have had the famed "blue moon".

What's a "blue moon"?  There are many definitions based upon old agricultural and ecclasiastical calendars.  Usually it is the "extra" full moon in a given period or season.  But in modern usage, a "blue moon" is the second full moon in a month.  In brief, every month there is one full moon, as the moon goes into full phase every 29 1/2 days.  (I don't know if there is a February without a full moon or what it is called, but it would be very cool and very dark!).  So the cycle of the moon when it is pressed up against the man-made calendar results in TWO full moons in a month. This second full moon rarely occurs.  It is the "Blue Moon", and it is magical.

Promises made under a Blue Moon are supposed to be unbreakable (I know who I want to make me a promise the next time one is guaranteed!).  Blue moons look down on lost lovers (probably because of the American standard crooner and doo-wop song "Blue Moon").  And when you find your true love, the moon is supposed to turn to gold; silly really, as the "blue" in blue moon has nothing to do with color, and everything to do with timing.  And finally, two full moons in a month have strong powers, pulling the tides and blood of moon-struck lovers everywhere.

For me, the wonder of the blue moon is the confluence of man-made rigor (the calendar, and the artificial divisions of how we measure time - seconds to minutes, minutes to hours, nours to days, days to weeks and weeks to months) and natural phenomena ungovernable by man (the phases of the moon).  I love that every once in a while -- once in a Blue Moon, in fact -- the careful construct of the year as 12 months each with one full moon, gives way to a double full moon.

By the way, if you want to make sure that promise gets kept, the next recognized Blue Moon comes at a very powerful time of year, and it is the last blue moon for several years -- on December 31, 2009, the moon will be full, for the second time in the month.  I will be somewhere, making a vow.  Will you?