Demetri Martin Revue

I recently saw Demetri Martin, a comedian who has a show on Comedy Central. He plays the piano and guitar during the show, and has a gigantic note pad with graphs and pictures as well. And yes, he uses a pointer on it. Not a laser pointer, but a real one. Here are some bits that I remember from the show; nothing is verbatim but it's all close to what he said.

My friend has coconut soap in his bathroom which is nice, unless your hands are dirty from coconuts. Then you don't know if the soap is working or not. "Do you have some soap that smells like hands?"

When I see a sign for a Talent Show I feel there should be a question mark at the end.

A tree house is so insensitive. That would be like if I killed your friend and made you hold him.

I wish I had cold cereal that was shaped like little boats. That way I could feel like a monster every morning.

If I had a baby I would start putting anti-aging cream on him right away. People would look at my baby and ask "How old is he? Is that a fetus?"

I heard a guy say the other day that he could go for some brownies. This got me thinking. If he is a chef, that's OK. If he's a scout leader, that's not OK. If he's a chef at a girl scout camp, I'm not sure.

I would like to fill a pinata with real animal guts.

I saw a guy eat his own burger the other day. It's not my thing, but I guess it works for him. It has its benefits - an endless supply of snacks. Before you go on a road trip you hope to get a cold so you can have snacks galore.

I like the sign for wet floor, because it has a picture. That clarifies the sign. It's not telling you what to do, it's showing you what will happen.

I always feel like my trip overseas was wasted when I go through customs. "Did you go on a farm?" "No." "Did you touch any livestock?" "No." "Do you have any firearms?" "No." Next time I go overseas I'm going to pet a cow than shot it.

I'm allergic to cats. This means I'm allergic to lions. That's a double whammy. Not only will I get mauled if I run into a lion, but I'll get a stuffy nose.

Without a doubt the best thing ever in existence is definitely exaggeration. No wait, it's qualifying statements. [There were a couple more things after that but I can't remember them.]

I don't watch sports as much as I used to. I think that's because I'd rather watch the mascots fight than the teams.

His show was well worth the price of admission, although not as good as Seinfeld, but who is? He spiced up the show well with the use of instruments so it felt longer than it actually was, a little shorter than ninety minutes. I definitely recommend seeing him if possible.

Tandoor-Barbeque Redux

It turns out that tandoori-barbeque chicken makes a fantastic panini with a little cheese and a few asparagus spears.

Tandoori + Barbeque = Wonderful

We recently bought a bunch of plain yogurt to make mulligatawny with leftover turkey. It never materialized, so we had a bunch of plain yogurt in the fridge. Chicken breasts were on sale so I figure I'd try a tandoori inspired BBQ concoction called "Chicken Exotica."

You start by marinating chicken breasts in yogurt mixed with lime juice, minced garlic, honey, and a mixture of a bunch of spices (paprika, coriander, cumin, ginger, allspice, salt, and pepper). You marinate the chicken for at least 12 hours and up to 48.

Then you slice up a red bell pepper and an onion into quarter-inch strips and toss them in a skillet with olive oil over medium-high heat until the onions carmelize. Then throw in about a half cup of mutha sauce (from the Dinosaur BBQ Cookbook) and cook a few more minutes until the sauce thickens.

Then you grill the chicken about 5-6 minutes per side. When they're done, you brush them with mutha sauce and bring them in. You put a scoop of the onion-pepper-sauce combo on each breast. I served them over a bed of long-grain basmati rice with asparagus steamed and sauteed in garlic butter on the side.

It was different grilling last night. At one point yesterday, the temperature was around 40 degrees. This morning it was lower than -10 degrees, with 50 mph winds (that translates to -30 degree windchills). So last night around 5:30 when I started the grill it was somewhere between: probably around 15 or 20 degrees with 40 mph winds. I have grilled before in cool weather, but never freezing weather. I was worried that the cold would put out the fire, but the wind acted as a bellows and really got the coals going hot. In just the few short minutes that I steood on the porch brushing the chicken with sauce my ears went numb and I could barely feel my fingers as I pulled the chicken off the grill.

But it was worth it. The yogurt tenderizes the chicken to the point that you can really almost overcook it without losing succulence. That allows you to get a nice carmelized (not quite charred) oustide that really soaks up the natural wood and smoke flavor, but without drying out the inside of the breast. The lime flavor really comes through, and is a fantastic complement to the Indian-inspired spice mixture. The mutha sauce adds some compexity and tang to the whole thing, but without being overpowering. And the carmelized onion really sits well with the honey-lime sweetness. The recipe actually calls for fresh cilantro snipped over the dish at the end, but I forgot.

It was still good.

Mice update

Well, I think we got them all. Nothing in the trap this morning, and the peanut butter was not disturbed. Five was the magic number.

On how to kill a mouse.

A few weeks ago, C and I were snuggled on the couch, watching a movie. It was late. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something skitter across the kitchen floor. I dismissed it as a shadow and forgot about it.

A day or two later, I saw it again. This time, it stopped just under the sink, and I saw the characteristic tail curl up and back over a small body. Moments later, C saw it too. We called the apartment manager. We told them that we had seen a mouse and that they should do something about it. They did nothing. We waited a week. We told them again. They did nothing. Finally, last weekend, we decided to take care of it ourselves. I thought about poison, but with a baby in the house---one that has just learned to walk and likes to play in the kitchen---that was a bad idea. I settled on trap that was based on the conventional spring trap design, but that was covered to avoid mess. And we decided that I would set it at night and put it away in the morning to avoid the baby problem.

The first night we caught the mouse. The trap worked smoothly. Just a little peanut butter for bait. In the morning I found his tail sticking out of the trap. I opened the trap and released the spring, dropping the dead rodent into the garbage. I took out the garbage and threw it in the dumpster. I figured that was that.

But then we saw another one. So I set the trap again. This time, it ate the peanut butter without tripping the trap. That puzzled me, so I decided to test the trap with my finger. Bad idea.

So on Monday, after we put the baby to bed, I set the trap again. Not 30 minutes went by before I heard it snap. I went to check it and found that the mouse had gotten just his tail and one back foot caught in it. He was still very much alive. So I took him outside and released the trap. He dropped to the grounds and scampered off, unhurt as far as I could tell. That was two.

On Tuesday, our apartment manager responded. They dropped off two of the sticky glue-style traps. Unlike the spring traps, that trap and usually kill a mouse by pinning it against a hard surface with a metal bar, the sticky traps trap a mouse in glue. It runs across the trap only to find that it cannot keep running. These traps do not kill the mouse instantly or even quickly. However, it is impossible to try to free a mouse from one of the these traps without killing it.

I placed one of the sticky traps Tuesday night. I woke up around 2:00am and heard a lot of squeaking. I figured the (hopefully) last mouse was out and about and would soon be trapped. When I got up around 5:30 I went to check the trap. I was unsurprised to find a mouse trapped in the glue. That was three But when I got close, I could see the small body still breathing---a fast, tiny rising and falling. I flipped on the light and it blinked at me and tried once again to run. But of course, all its legs and the entire left side of its body had adhered immovably to the trap. Instead of running, it produced nothing but a small, pathetic, quivering struggle. Seemingly resigned to the trap, the mouse quit struggling and lay its head down on the glue. I wondered then whether the squeaking I heard was really crying and struggling. It made me sad to think of a scared creature trapped in glue for hours. The mouse directed its eyes at me. I watched a tiny heart beat under the suddenly beautiful two-tone fur.

I thought I might free it from the trap as I did the night before. I went outside in my slippers, sweatpants, and T-shirt and crouched in the new snow under a streetlight. I gingerly peeled up his tail. He swished it side to side. Then I went for back left leg. I was able to pull it up, but when I did, it was bent at an unnatural-looking angle. Unlike the tail, the leg did not move. At this point, the mouse urinated and began to squeak. I knew that there was no chance of freeing him from the trap, but to just throw it away with a broken leg would be too cruel. Better a quick death than a slow, starving, freezing death tossed into a cold Minneapolis dumpster. So I folded the trap over the mouse, put my thumb where his head would have been, and pressed down until I felt a small snap.

I felt bad. But I had done nothing wrong. I reminded myself that rodents can carry disease, that we have a child in the house, that mice are pests, that they're just little creatures anyway. That we humans are, after all, supposed to be in charge here we have dominion over these lesser creations. And I believe all that. Killing the mouse was justified---in the circumstances, even humane. I believe that that's true. I believe that it is justified. But that doesn't answer for me the deeper question: why do I feel compelled to justify it in the first place?

Throughout the day on Wednesday, fragments of scripture flitted across my mind. I thought of Eden and creation. I heard my own voice speaking the words: "the blood of every beast will I require at your hands." See Genesis 9:11 (Joseph Smith Translation). I think of Jesus saying that God the Father notices even when a sparrow dies. See Matthew 10:29; Luke 12:6. I see an aging prophet asking his church to "don't shoot the little birds." See Ensign, (May 1978) 47. I wonder, does God just "see" the sparrow fall? Is he just coldly, scientifically observing? That seems at odds with the power and passion of a God that weeps. See Moses 7:28. I think there's something more to it: He doesn't just see the sparrow fall, he feels it. He laments it, he mourns it.

That phrase "the blood of every beast will I require at your hands"---I kept repeating it in my mind; where does it come from? This morning looked it up. Turns out that this is what God said to Noah after he, his family, and the animals all emerged from the ark into the light of a new world. But that's not all---the passage is not in the King James Version. It comes from the Joseph Smith Translation. The original passage reads almost exactly opposite: "surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man’s brother will I require the life of man." Genesis 9:5 (KJV). The focus in the King James Version is not on animal life, but on human life. The passage seems to say that God will hold animals accountable for killing human beings.

But Joseph Smith turns this reading on its head. Instead, he says, God will hold human beings accountable for killing animals needlessly. And he sets a pretty high standard for what is needful: "surely, blood shall not be shed, only for meat, to save your lives." Genesis 9:11 (JST). Of course, we can say, that was a different time, a different place. That injunction does not apply to us. But I see a harmony between the principle expressed here and other teachings of Joseph Smith.

In the official history of the Church, he recounts this story:

We crossed the Embarras river and encamped on a small branch of the same about one mile west. In pitching my tent we found three massasaugas or prairie rattlesnakes, which the brethren were about to kill, but I said, ‘Let them alone—don’t hurt them!

How will the serpent ever lose his venom, while the servants of God possess the same disposition and continue to make war upon it? Men must become harmless, before the brute creation; and when men lose their vicious dispositions and cease to destroy the animal race, the lion and the lamb can dwell together, and the sucking child can play with the serpent in safety.’

The brethren took the serpents carefully on sticks and carried them across the creek. I exhorted the brethren not to kill a serpent, bird, or an animal of any kind during our journey unless it became necessary in order to preserve ourselves from hunger.” 2 History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 71-72; see also Ensign, (Aug. 2001) 13.

Millennial yearning is not unique to Latter-day Saints. It has been the hope of prophets and poets and preachers throughout the centuries. The prophets of the Old Testament wrote rhapsodically of that day when every valley will be exalted---when every mountain will be made low---when the rough places will be made smooth and the crooked made straight---when the glory of the Lord will be revealed---when all flesh will see it together. And during the civil rights movement, Martin Luther King quoted those passages often for inspiration and hope. But what is unique about Joseph Smith's millenial vision is the explicit way it connects the millennium to the way we human beings use nature. In Joseph's Smith's vision, creation, flood, and millennium are are connected by the silver thread of stewardship.

In the King James version, God tells Noah that animals will be accountable for human life because human beings are made in God's image. In Joseph Smith's translation, God tells Noah that human beings will be accountable for animal life because human beings are created in God's image---and if created in his image, then created to follow his example and be like him.

My compulsion to justify killing the mouse, I think, is a reflection of a deeper truth that life---all life---is precious. I think of what Jacob said: "the one being is as precious in his sight as the other." Jacob 2:21. A loss of life---even a completely justified loss, and even a very small life---is to be mourned.

So this is the question that I ask myself: What does it mean to believe in a God who observes the sparrow's fall, and who will require the blood of every beast at my hands? It can't really mean, literally, that its a sad thing to kill a pest.

But then again, it's easy to forget how radical the religion of Jesus really is.

This morning I found two more dead mice in caught together in the spring trap. That's five.

The Eats Sheet, Extreme Leftover Edition: Grilled Turkey Sandwiches with Sweet Potato Steak Fries

Well, if I were to be all Italian, I guess I would call them panini. But I prefer the American Grilled Sandwich. Yesterday this became a new day-after-Thanksgiving tradition for our family. It's wonderfully simple, but so much better than simply nuking a plate of turkey and mashed potatoes. I picked up the idea for the sandwiches from Williams-Sonoma the other day, but added a few of my own embellishments.

The Fries:

The thing about sweet potatoes, sometimes called yams, is that they are a pretty darn good vegetable; it makes little sense to turn them into a mediocre-at-best dessert. That awful marshmallow concoction you sometimes see at the table tries to parade a vegetable around as if it were a fruit. Marshmallows should never come near sweet potatoes, in my opinion. If you want to make sweet potatoes into a dessert, just go all the way and make a freakin' sweet potato pie.

Otherwise, allow sweet potatoes the dignity of being what they are: a good root vegetable. This is what I did: Take one or two sweet potatoes and slice them in half, the long way, and then slice them up into 1/4 inch thick steak fries. Put them in a bowl with about 1/3 cup of olive oil. Season them well with salt and pepper, and then sprinkle in some rosemary and thyme. Spread them out on a large cookie sheet (it helps to spray the cookie sheet) and stick them in a 425 degree oven for about 20 minutes. Then take them out, stir them, and stick them back in for another 10 minutes or so until they are nice and crispy. The great thing about these fries is that the sugar in the sweet potatoes caramelizes really nicely, but without being overhwlemingly sweet. They'll be crispy and caramelized on the outside, but soft and mellow on the inside. When you take them out, taste one and salt them again if they need it.

The Gravy:

While the fries are cooking away, get some gravy heated up, because you're going to serve it with the sandwiches---french dip style. I don't know about you, but my gravy is always a little more like meat-flavored jell-o the day after Thanksgiving. Not very appetizing. But what I've found out is that if I heat the meat jell-o in a saucepan with a little turkey stock and maybe a splash of milk, the old gravy is really more like a gravy base and it produces a nice new gravy. Get the gravy good and hot, but reduce the heat when it boils and everything is well combined. Taste it, because you might need to add some more salt. Keep it hot, but not boiling, until the sandwiches are ready.

The turkey stock is something that we usually have a lot of the day after Thanksgiving. It's pretty simple, and a great way to not waste all those bones and bits of meat. You can either divide the turkey bones into two even piles or do it all together if you have a big enough soup pot. Either way, you throw some bones into a stock pot with a quartered onion (don't even bother peeling it, but wash it), two or three crushed garlic cloves, one or two split carrots, and few broken stalks of celery. Season it well with salt, oregano, a little thyme or rosemary, and parsley. Throw in a small handfull of peppercorns and cover it all with water. Get it boiling, redice the heat, and let it simmer for about 2 hours. Then pour it through a fine strainer and skim the fat. You can use it right away for soup or freeze it and save it for making soups, braising meat and veggies, or to spice up a sauce. It handy to have around and its a lot better and less salty than chicken boullion.

The Sandwiches:

Like any Thanksgiving leftover dish, the turkey is the foundation. This is where it becomes important to carve your bird the right way, removing the meat in big chunks and carving the chunks across the grain in thin slices. That way you get tender, juicy meat that works great in sandwiches. For my sandwich I used a combination of breast and thigh meat. But what sets this apart from any old Turkey sandwich is the condiments. First, you spread a piece of thick crusty bread with mayonnaise, and another one with cranberry sauce. Then you stack some turkey on both pieces, and place a slice of cheese on the turkey. I used Colby Jack. Then you put a scoop of stuffing on and put the two slices together. Brush each side with olive oil and grill in a panini press until the bread is golden and it's all heated through. Cut it in half and then serve it up with a nice helping of fries and a cup of gravy to dip it in.

The idea of stuffing in a sandwich seemed odd and a little redundant, but since I used corn bread stuffing, it was a nice variety. And the celery and apple we put in the stuffing was a good compliment for the sandwich. For a spicier variation you could use chipotle mayo, replace the cranberry sauce with a hot creole mustard, and maybe throw a few banana peppers or jalapenos on. If you have folk who don't like sweet potatoes (probably because they've been led by the marhsmallow heresy to believe that they are a gross fruit instead of a decent veggie), you can throw a few regular potatoes into the mix. They take a little longer to cook, but they work as well. Another interesting variation for the fries would be to reduce the salt and throw a splash of soy sauce into the olive oil.

The Easts Sheet: Maple-Glazed Turkey

This is my third year roasting a turkey, and this was the best so far.

First, I made up a rub of salt and black pepper with some ground sage and marjoram. I rubbed this all over the inside of the cavity, then quartered an onion and and apple and stuffed these into the cavity with a few broken stalks of celery. This gets a good infusion into the meat, and since you don't eat it, you don't have to worry about it getting cooked, like you do with stuffing.

But the real difference was the sweetness. There were two things I did to get some sweetness going: first, I poured about a half cup of apple cider into the bottom of the roasting pan to keep things moist in there; second, I made up a maple butter glaze to baste the bird while it roasted. There glaze is deceptively simple; there are exactly two ingredients: one cup butter, and 1/2 cup maple syrup. I used a dark amber syrup, which is the most common commercially available maple syrup. A lighter syrup would be sweeter, but since turkey is a savory dish to begin with, I liked the earthier flavor of the dark amber.

I melted the butter and the syrup together and poured about half of it over the bird before sticking it in the oven at 325. I then basted with the remaining glaze every 45 minutes or so. I roasted the bird covered, worried that the sugars and the milk solids in the butter might burn. My plan was to take the cover off for the last hour, but I underestimated how quickly it would cook with the cover on. When I took the cover off, the thighs were already registering at 160. So I kept it in for another just 45 minutes. It didn't quite get the browning I wanted, but it still looked very nice. The meat was more done than I prefer, but with a baby in the house, that's probably a good thing.

But even with the meat being a little overdone, even the breast stayed nice and juicy, not like some dried-out Thanksgiving birds. The reason: resting. When the bird comes out of the oven, it can be really tempting to cut into it right then because everybody's hungry. It's better to let it rest. When the meat is hot, all the tasty fat and juices are hot, so when you cut into it, the juices pour out and instantly turn into steam when they hit the air. The result is that they all evaporate the meat is left dry. When you let the bird rest, those juices have time to cool and to absorb back into the meat. Most recipes suggest a 20-25 minute resting time. I think this is way too short. I like to let it sit for at least 30-35 minutes, and I prefer up to an hour if people can wait that long. If the meat is too hot to touch with my fingers, I don't think it's ready to carve.

But everyone prefers a hot meal, not a room temperature one. You might be wondering if it can be appetizing to eat meat that has cooled that much. There are a few ways to tackle this dilemma: First, you can just cover the meat and stick it in a warm oven to gently reheat it. Second, you can cover the meat and just let the residual heat work. But the best option, and one that you can combine with either of the first two, is to get your heat from the gravy, not the meat. Serve up the turkey on a platter, and then just keep your gravy piping hot on the stove until the moment that everyone has sat down and is ready to eat. With some near-boiling gravy, that meat could be room temperature and nobody would care.

Speaking of gravy, that was really the highlight of this recipe. While the meat was good prepared this way, the real kicker was the gravy that came from the drippings this bird produced. I threw some of the apples and onions into the bottom of the roasting pan to infuse the drippings. There were a good 4-6 cups of drippings. I skimmed off the most obvious fat and then reduced the rest of it down to about 2 1/3 to 3 cups. I salted it, peppered it, threw in some tyme. With it still boiling, I added a cup of milk with 3 tablespoons of cornstarch mixed in, and then let it boil until it thickened. The sage, the onion, and the natural saltiness of the turkey fat mingled with the cider and the maple butter for a mellow gravy with just a hint of sweetness. Very good.

Carving technique is another issue. A lot of people like to carve the breast from the bones. That's the traditional way. But the problem is that you end up slicing along the grain of the meat rather than across the grain, leading to more chewy/stringy, and less tender slices. I like to carve the bird like a butcher would: removing the meat in large pieces, keeping muscles as intact as possible, and then slicing those large chunks on a carving board across the grain into small slices. This, I've found, also preserves the juices better. Here's a handy guide to carving.

First, I take off the drumsticks and thighs together, then the wings, and then I go back and get the breast by slicing down as close as possible to the breast bone, and pulling more than slicing to remove the breast. I then slice the drumsticks off the thigh and serve them up without further carving. The thighs I like to debone before carving. You slice along the bone, and then rotate the bone, continuing to slice along it until you can lift it out. Then you have a whole boneless thigh, which slices up much more nicely than a mangles mess of muscle tissue. The wings are usually pretty fatty and with not all that much meat, so I usually just shred the wing meat and mix it up later with some barbeque sauce for sandwiches, nachos, tostados, or whatever.