The Simple Pleasures of Simple Lives

Jimmy B is getting married! He and his lady have decided to make it official in early April, and he's asked me to be a groomsman. The last weekend of my winter's vacation was spent in San Diego at a bachelor's party.

It was an all-timer lineup: Jimmy, Ryan, Steve, Eric and Ken made it down from San Luis Obispo, Sam made it down from Albany, Jimmy's brother-in-law made it down from the peninsular Bay Area, and Tony, visiting from Louisiana, rode with me from Long Beach.

Many of the shenanigans that occurred were, of course, meant to be left is San Diego county.

Upon returning to our apartment, the relief I felt was a tiny bit surprising. As Tony relaxed into an early evening post-dinner nap in our CAPS chair, I cuddled with Corrie on the couch. We were watching the Test Kitchen or Jacques Pepin.

It was then, sitting on the couch as the furnace blew hot air, that I replayed the many conversations I listened to and participated in over the previous two days. It was interesting to hear what life is like for people to whom I feel very close. Maybe that should be Life, with the capital "L."

Over the years Corrie and I have adventured around this rock a few times, and maybe the lives we live would not seem Simple to some people. While our vacation decisions differ greatly from many Americans, and we cook at home more than most (it turns out), we do like the simple pleasures.

And, when all is said and done, it turns out we like a quiet night on the couch watching PBS.

Pretty boring. No Tuesday nights at the bar, no fighting kids, no revolution-building talks at the cafe...

I need to get back to the book I'm writing...

Hot Soup; Easy Grub

I had been meaning to make this for a while, and finally got around to it. So easy, so rich and tasty...

We had a piece of meat that had been purchased on a "Manager's Special" discount, which means it had to be either eaten or frozen within a day. A few days later I saw it, noticed the sticker, saw it had oxidized (turned gray) and that it may have developed a tiny layer of slime (started to turn). Since dinner was already done, I threw it in the freezer.

I mention all this because a week went by, maybe ten days, and I noticed I had three-quarters of a large onion waiting to be used. As vacation had already set in, and the Decemberween trip to Santa Monica coming up soon, I knew that all the groceries would need to be eaten. 

Finally the opportunity presented itself.

I sliced the onion thin, put it into one of my sauce pots with some oil and bit of butter, hit it with some salt, turned the heat on low, and let it go. I came by every fifteen minutes to give it a stir, but really all you want to do is slowly caramelize the onion.

I was making French Onion Soup.

Typically, all you do is caramelize onion and add beef stock, but water will do just fine if you have no stock. On this day, I had no stock, but we did have that funky beef from earlier. I pulled it out of the freezer, used a cleaver to cut it into thirds while still frozen, and started boiling it to make broth.

Note: broth is made with meat, while stock is made with bones. I'm not sure what the distinction between veg broth and veg stock is...

After the broth had been going for a while, and the onions were nicely caramelized, I added the broth to the onions, let it simmer for a while, then started to add the real French touch: the bread and cheese.

The French like to add bread to the top of the pot, cover that bread with cheese, and broil the whole deal until the cheese is melted and bubbly.

Here's a picture before it went into the broiler:

Here it is five to seven minutes later:

It was so rich and delicious.

Onions, water (or broth/stock), and time. Cheese and bread optional. So easy and so tasty.

For a special French secret twist try this: As the soup finishes in the broiler, take one egg yolk and beat it with one or two teaspoons of dry sherry in a bowl. Once the soup comes out and the cheese and bread are all crusty, break open some space in the middle and pour in the yolk mixture. Stir gently. When it's cool enough to eat, it will be even more rich and awesome, and the yolk will be pasteurized, so nothing to worry about there. Oh...the French...

Hot Soup!

New Year Under a Pile of Cats

Someday I may relay an anecdote about New Year's Eve and Day, about walking with Victor over to the scene of some party-carnage, but not now.

Anyway, Happy 2016! For some reason, here's a link collection for the "New Year" declaration from this blog over the years:

2010: From Texas, we'd just moved out.
2011: Also from Texas, we'd just returned from California and the interview that lead to the return.
2012: Still working in Costa Mesa...
2013: Excited about the release of Robot Crickets.
2014: Just returned from Asia and post isn't so much about "Happy New Year."
2015: Talking about parties and weather situations down ere in Southern California.

I compiled this list mostly because I wanted to focus on the change over the years that I've been keeping this forum. A solid portion of those posts really don't say much, as I had plans on the days they were written to work out a handful of things and needed to start somewhere.

2016 marks the 8th calendar year that I've been at this, which is wild when I think about it. I have some plans to release tiny collections of material from the Caliboy Network, but we'll see how that works---I've only been trying to get everything ready for twenty months by now.

I'll be trying to get to some more stuff today.

This morning it took a matter of minutes for me to get inundated after I had a seat on the couch. Corrie brought me coffee because I couldn't get up, I was under a pile of cats.

Happy New Year! Here's to everyone being safe and happy and finding what they're looking for!