making is believing

hillbilly hambagu

One time, on Twitter, Myriam Jessier asked me what I would do with a Hambagu recipe. Not gonna lie. Had to Google it. Here's what I found because it was the first site that came up. How's that for great SEO work??Drive Me HungryNow I see. It's sort of like Salisbury Steak. Here's my favorite recipe for that, in case you're interested.Martha StewartI'm not Japanese and I'm not from New England, which I think is where Salisbury Steak is from. Oh hell, I looked it up.Salisbury SteakAnyway, I figure the only spin I can really give to this is the same spin I gave to pesto: Southernishness. Hear me out.1 lb ground beef
1 cornbread slice or muffin or whatnot
½ cup buttermilk
½ medium onion - finely diced
1 cup fresh collard greens chopped
1 or 2 teaspoons melted leaf lard
1 egg
2 teaspoons ketchup
1 teaspoon fish sauce
¾ teaspoon sea salt
½ teaspoon pepper
¼ cup brewed tea1. Soak the cornbread in the buttermilk while you:
2. Cook the onions and collards in 1 teaspoon of the lard until tender, but not brown.
3. Go back to your cornbread and mush it up.
4. Mix everything together, including the onions and collards, but NOT the tea, in a big bowl with gloved hands. OMG use gloves.
5. Shape into oval patties that have a sort of dent running through the top middle. Like a bolillo roll.
6. Cook on medium high heat in a cast iron skillet if you have it. If not, regular skillet, electric skillet, whatever you have. Ideally, use the same pan you used to cook your onions/collards and add the extra teaspoon of lard if you're fancy.Cook for about 5 minutes and DO NOT touch them. After 5 minutes, flip them if it's easy. If not, let them cook another minute then flip. Cook on the other side for 8-10 minutes, or really until you think they're done. I grew up eating ground meat well done, so you do you. Once they are done, add the tea, cover and steam for a few minutes.I don't know how to tell you to make the gravy for this. I would take out the meat and then make a cornstarch and COLD water slurry and add to the liquid. Then I'd taste and add things like ketchup and fish sauce and whatever else I think might taste good.This is my recipe. I haven't tested it yet. I will.NOTES:I only buy ground beef from White Oak Pastures. Maybe you have access to really great beef from a farm practicing regenerative agriculture. If you don't, buy whatever damn meat you like and can afford.Fish sauce? Yes. I use it in pretty much everything and I only use Squid Brand. I tried Red Boat and I hated it. My partner and I used to count how long we've been together by years, but now we just use empty bottles of Squid.Leaf lard? It's the fat under the kidneys of pigs. I don't eat pork, but I do use lard. I use it because I have a metric eff ton of it that I rendered myself. I'll use it until it's gone I suppose. White Oak Pastures might convince me to eat pork again one day. Beef tallow will work just fine here. So will Crisco. Don't let anyone shame you. This is not healthy food. Just don't use olive oil because the heat will be too high.Tea? Yep. I thought about this and it makes sense and it's southern as hell. I use tea to marinate chicken before frying sometimes. It's an amazing liquid that works wonders. I think it will work here. If it doesn't, I'll let you know.I think that's about it. Keep in mind I whipped this up in about 20 minutes, so there may be errors and nonsense. I'm sure you'll let me know!

pondering the pocket

Do you know how women’s pockets came to be? It's interesting stuff and its pretty recent. Way back in the day, in Europe anyway, everyone wore bags tied around their waists or hanging from belts inside their clothing. This kept pickpockets at bay and helped keep valuables on your person. Men got pockets in the late 1600’s. All kinds of pockets. Everywhere. Women had to keep hiding their goods inside their voluminous skirts for two more centuries! Once fashion drove skirts toward the body, reticules and chatelaines ruled the day. In other words, we had to start worrying about purses. That’s a post for another day. We’ll get there.Enter the Rational Dress Society. The idea was that women needed freedom of movement in order to be healthy and pockets were part of the logic. But of course, this was not without controversy. As with anything involving the way women present themselves, Rational Dress was something to be made fun of. In 1899, The New York Times said, “As we become more civilized, we need more pockets. No pocketless people has ever been great since pockets were invented, and the female sex cannot rival us while it is pocketless.” So it became a “big deal” that women could now stand with their hands in their pockets instead of affecting a demure posture. Can you even??Thankfully, we’re beyond such silliness. What’s that you say? You have more clothes in your closet without pockets than with? That makes no sense. You carry things. You have a phone. You need a place for your hands whenever you feel like it. Turns out we’ve been shafted this whole time. We are told that men have pockets for function but we have pockets for decoration, with apologies to Mr. Dior for that paraphrase. I call shenanigans! Dang it, I want pockets where I want pockets, and I bet you do as well.Guess what? I install pockets. [UPDATE: not anymore] All kinds of pockets. If you have a seam that can be opened, I can put a pocket there. Are you the jaunty sort who likes a single or double welt pocket? Yep. Can do. Maybe some extra pockets on your cargo pants. Maybe a secret pocket for that love letter from that boy in high school that you keep with you at all times. I can hide that so well that the woman who buys your vintage clothing at the estate sale long after you’re gone will end up on whatever passes for the news that far in the future. She’ll read that letter out loud, but you and the boy won’t care.Pockets. Let’s make them a big deal again. [ASIDE: If you do decide to ask someone to install pockets for you, please pay them well. If it was that easy, you would have done it already, right?]

is this hem binding?

When you are faced with the task of cutting the sleeves off a $700 trench coat, you naturally pause for dramatic effect. I love this cotton and silk coat.

It's by Doncaster, one of my favorite brands in the land. The workmanship on it is top notch. Look at those covered seams.

Although, when I started taking it apart, I noticed that two different stitch lengths had been used on the binding.

Was this on purpose? I think not, as its only sewn that way on one sleeve. Curious what you find when you deconstruct a thing.This fabric, though gorgeous, is the kind that unravels the moment you put scissors to it. Even pinking shears. It doesn’t care. I think maybe it thinks its too good to be touched by the likes of me. My original plan was to bind the new hem just like the old one.

I knew I wouldn’t be able to find the exact color of binding, and because I was making the sleeves bracelet length, I wouldn’t be able to reuse the original binding; there wouldn’t be enough. My client and I pondered hot pink, but when testing it out I saw that under natural light the pink showed through. Damn you magic unraveling fabric with sporadically see-through action. White it is.Guess what? Due to the previously mentioned unraveling thing, I couldn’t use narrow binding like all of the other binding. There’s just too much raw thread moving around and I ended up with missed stitches and gaps. And the more I experimented, the more fabric I lost. It reminded me of the time my original iPhone died. It died line by pixelated line from the bottom up every time I opened the home screen. I was also hoping that removing almost seven inches of sleeve length would eliminate any tapering. Ha. Ha. Ha. But I dealt with that and sewed the wider binding and all was right with the world.

Then I had to decide how to attach the cuffed hem back to the sleeve. Doncaster, being a company with enormous resources, used a commercial blind hem machine that I honestly dream about from time to time. I have a blind hemmer, but its not meant for jobs like this. Hand sewing is sometimes the only option. And there’s nothing wrong with that. People hand sewed everything until the mid-1800’s when:“The first practical and widely used sewing machine was invented by Barthélemy Thimonnier, a French tailor, in 1829. His machine sewed straight seams using chain stitch like Saint’s model, and in 1830, he signed a contract with Auguste Ferrand, a mining engineer, who made the requisite drawings and submitted a patent application. The patent for his machine was issued on 17 July 1830, and in the same year, he opened (with partners) the first machine-based clothing manufacturing company in the world to create army uniforms for the French Army. However, the factory was burned down, reportedly by workers fearful of losing their livelihood following the issuing of the patent.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sewing_machineLe sigh.On that note, I present to you the new and (I think) improved Doncaster green and white trench coat.

It looks like it came from the past to make you happy. There’s just something about bracelet length sleeves. We’ll talk about those another time. I LOVE talking about sleeves.

2016 grammy research project

Rather than be my normal Snark-o-Matic 3000 after an awards show that I didn't know was
happening, I thought I would do what I was taught way back when in Mrs. Harris' 5th grade class. Investigate. Don't just say you don't like a thing. See whether or not you like or don't like the thing. OK. In honor of her, I will endeavor to listen to all of the winning Grammy songs. I will approach this with as open a mind as I can, given the material. I'm simply going down the list of categories and seeing what's what. Winners/Losers/Nominees.First of all, I feel about Taylor Swift like I do about the movies Titanic and Casablanca. Is there a reason I've never seen either one? Sure. Do I remember what that reason is? Ummm...foggy. But as far as I'm aware, I've never knowingly heard a Taylor Swift song and I wanted to keep it that way. However, I also used to gag when I had to eat little green peas and pickled beets. Maybe Taylor Swift is the Le Sueur Baby Pea of music.I've heard of Kelly Clarkson, but I had NO idea she was still famous. Good for her!! As I recall, she was a woman of a certain size and I'm hoping she still is. If that's what makes her happy, that is. I guess what I'm saying is that I'll be interested to see if she was forced to become someone she's not in order to have staying power in the music industry. See what just happened there? Mrs. Harris was right. I haven't even listened to anything yet and I've already found an interesting angle. Well played Mrs. H.Mark Ronson. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that there is something about that name that tells me his sister was/is a DJ and had a thing with Lindsay Lohan. Not worth investigating, but if I discover I'm correct I suppose there's some memory vindication there. The point being, I think I've heard of him. Maroon 5? Really?? That's strange. Have they been popular all this time or is this some kind of charity deal? Did they have a car wreck or something and one of them is performing with one less limb? I'm being serious. HOW ARE THEY STILL A BAND?? But Florence and the Machine is yay. I'm happy about that, except that I have no idea what the song is and I'll be honest when I say that I've only listened to the songs from the one album that Cathy Poteat Lang told me about. I don't remember the name of it. The Dog Days one. Of course. I'm that person.Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album? Obviously I know these folks. I'm old. Bravo. Josh Groban is hilariously funny, BTW. If you get a chance to see the episode of "Nevermind the Buzzcocks" that he hosted, then you are in for a treat.James Taylor was up for Best Pop Vocal. I don't know. Weird somehow.This project has now taken on a whole new flavor. It seems I'm interested in listening to all of the nominees, not just the winners. OK. I can do that. I'm still on bed rest-ish, according to my Rob.Best Dance Recording category. Hey!! These must be my people. I know them all and know all of the songs. Here's an interesting side note. "Never Catch Me" features Kendrick Lamar. He's one of the people I've never heard of. But HAVE I?? I've heard this song, so I've heard him. And I hate this song. Really, really hate. Will that sentiment remain when I’ve listened to Mr. Lamar proper?Best Contemporary Instrumental category. Snarky Puppy???? HOW did I not know about this group/person/act? After finally getting Google to realize I was not trying to find Sylva, NC, I found the album by that name and it's now my background music. I feel a sense of awe and shame. Perhaps Contemporary Instrumental is my new thing? What is it normally used for? It's not in the Soundtrack category. Oh...wait...saxophones. You can go to hell Snarky Puppy. Hopefully, the others won't betray me with any fern bar nonsense.Best Rock Performance category. I think I'm supposed to love Alabama Shakes, but I'm not sure why. I honestly thought it was a restaurant chain. Mea culpa. I'm pretty sure I'm not going to like them in the way that I knew I wasn't going to like Drive By Truckers or those people who throw fried chicken. Who are Wolf Alice and Elle King? No clue. Foo Fighters. I'm always going to say they win. Dave Grohl is a beast among men and if Rob and I could have the kind of dinner parties we dream of, he would be on the permanent rotation along with Rob Zombie and the entire cast of Particle Fever.Best Metal Performance category. Again, I'm struck by bands that I think of as dead or working at Waffle House. Shame. On. Me. I don't know Ghost or August Burns Red. I think there may have been a Sevendust song that I didn't hate back in the day. But that might have been Slayer. I'm as eager to hear these bands that I "know" I don't like as I am TS and the other autotuned wonders. No, really. This is a good thing.At this point I've realized this is quite the undertaking. Not the listening, but the writing about each category. Not gonna happen. So I'll scroll down the list and hit some highlights. My Morning Jacket!! I was in the audience of the Conan O'Brien show when they played for the first time. Perks of NYC life plus a boss who didn't know WTF was going on plus me not giving a rat's behind at the time. Anyway, they blew my mind. Still do. They didn't win this year. People are dumb. But maybe the others are better. I mean, I know they aren't but I'll reserve judgment.I saw someone with the last name Braxton and I thought it was Toni Braxton until I saw it was Tamar. I'll be clued in to all of the R&B hit's soon. I am confused as to the difference between Best R&B and Best Traditional R&B. Is that like the difference between New Country and Traditional Country? And if so, what does that really mean? Is it topical? Are there subjects you can and cannot tackle in each version of each genre? Maybe you can sing about drinking in Traditional Country, but not meth because it wasn't a thing until after a certain date? Or if you sing about war it can't be anything beyond Vietnam? I'm asking because I do not know. Perhaps I will find out. I'm actually going to put this on my list of things to find out. I see there is also Urban Contemporary. With an "artist" named The Internet. It's beyond hope that someone released a self-replicating algorithm that trolled the internet and came up with a song called Ego Death. That's too brilliant. But it would fit the title of the song. Artist doesn't actually write the song, just facilitates the writing. Thus, leaving his/her ego at the door. Hmmmm…So now we get into Rap, and that's a genre I know a little more about. Not as much what's popular these days, but it certainly interests me more than Taylor Swift any day of the week. Rob and I watched a really great documentary about Trap music a while back. So when I see a song called "Trap Queen" I feel like I'm not totally ignorant. But I am curious as to why there are so many publishers on the song "All Day". It's amazing. Nothing else like it in the entire list. I'm just going to copy/paste:Please Gimme My Publishing/EMI Blackwood Music Inc./MPL Communications Inc./TYLER BRANT PUBLISHING/WB Music Corp./ Hard Working Black Folks Inc./Top Dawg Music/Excuse My French Music/EMI Blackwood Music Inc./Monarch Music/Abou Thiam Publishing/Victor Kwesi Mensah Publishing Designee/ALLEN KYARIGA/EMI Blackwood Music o/b/o Papa George Publishing/Kaya and Ethan Music/Primary Wave Brian/Noah Goldstein admin. by Reach Music Publishing/Ritter Boy LLC/Mario Winans Publishing Designee/Broken Locks/Songs of Universal Inc./Jabriel Iz Myne /Universal Music/Patrick Reynolds Publishing Designee/Smooth Thug Music/Noel Ellis Publishing Designee/Justin Combs Music Publishing administered by EMI April MusicI suppose I could speculate about this, but it would be from complete ignorance. My first reaction to seeing anything involving the music industry is, "Money. it's a money grab somehow." But maybe that's not it. If someone can explain it to me I'd be grateful. Although I know no one has made it this far in my silly diatribe.Oh blarg extreme. Is there anything worse than modern country music? Yes. Contemporary Christian music. I've heard it said (probably by me) that modern country music is for folks who aren't marketable enough to be rock stars. And below that you have folks who aren't marketable enough to be country stars. Thus, Contemporary Christian. Anyway, this train of thought started when I saw a country song titled "John Cougar, John Deere, John 3:16." It's going to take all of my intestinal fortitude to listen to that. Egads. I also see Joey+Rory and I know who they are from FB. And I'm really sad about them and that's all I'm going to say about that.New Age? Improvised Jazz Solo? Jazz Vocal? Jazz Ensemble????? If I keep scrolling and I see Blues, then I'm in big trouble. You see kids, this is why you investigate the ENTIRE scope of your project before you make big pronouncements about what you're going to do. This all started because I was feeling higher and mightier than TS. Then I felt bad about that, never having heard her. Then I felt encouraged that I could do something about that and have a decent research project at the same time. [Because seriously, I am nothing without a research project.] Then I started feeling high and mighty about the damn project. Then slightly overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of categories. No worry. Just skim and summarize!! And now this. Jazz. Saxophones all over the place. Trumpets even. I feel sick and stupid and less-than. Because I know deep in the pit of my soul that where there is jazz there is blues. There has to be. And I'm going to have to listen to it. So I scroll and prepare to face the inevitable.Category 49. Best Blues Album. And what I can't even believe is that the person who put the "Run Screaming" into blues for me is the winner of the damn category. Buddy Guy. Buddy F'n Guy. I have no beef with him personally. Obviously, he is much too important to worry about the likes of me. But I saw him perform back in the day and it was the single worst musical experience of my life. Faster Pussycat is a close second, but Buddy Guy is the first. Quiet Riot poolside at the Silverton Casino is third. First? Buddy Guy. I can't say any more. I need my strength.World Music. What is that? Who decides? Who decides and what does it really mean? Do you have to have people from multiple countries IN your band or does it have nothing to do with that? I'm looking forward to hearing this category. I think I remember people pretending to know what World Music was in the late 80's/early 90's. When Paul Simon did that album and people cared for an hour.I'm not looking forward to any of the kid stuff, but I would like to note that there is an album about healthy eating in Spanish and English AND an album that seems to be about pie both in the same category. I'd forgotten there would be comedy. I've seen the Louis CK deal from Madison Square Garden, so I guess I can skip that. I'll probably save the comedy for another day because this whole project is about music. And wow, I still have a ways to go. Musical Theater, Spoken Word (do I include?), Historical Album, Remixed Recording, Surround Sound Album(???), all of the Classical categories…There's a lot to do here. Other than getting aurally shanked by Snarky Puppy, I haven't listened to anything yet. And that should be a huge wake up call to me. There's literally, not figuratively, an entire world of music out there that I know nothing about. Some of it is bound to be crap. Some of it is bound to be good. Some of it I won't get or understand because it wasn't written for me. And that's no different from some folks enjoying reading a Chicken Soup for the Soul book vs some folks enjoying The Hobbit. Some people want to look at contemporary art and others enjoy seeing copies of old masters. Drama or Sci-Fi vs. RomCom or Documentary. This is all subjective, thank goodness, and no matter what I say there is zero shame in what you listen to or watch or look at. I don't even care what I think most of the time, so I sure as hell don't expect you to. But I will listen and I will write about what I heard. It'll be fun for me and fun is a concept I'm just getting used to again. To quote a famous Lisa from an outrageously famous album I loved dearly, "Shall we begin?"