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Thursday, November 25, 2010

Thanksgiving Day Food and Floats




Turkey:
Get one which is plump and young. Clean as usual; do not omit drawing the tendons in the leg and removing the lungs and kidneys; clean and truss as usual. Place on a rack in the dripping pan; brush well with soft butter and dredge with flour. Set in a hot oven and when well browned reduce heat; lay it on the side, turn and brown the other and finally lay it on the back to brown the breast; this ensures an even color. Baste with butter till nicely browned, then add a pint of water and renew if needed. Dredge with flour at every alternate basting. If the cook cannot be trusted to baste often, a hen turkey should be chosen, but the cock has higher flavor and is better for boning, boiling and braising.
[farmer note: make up your own basted John Boehner cock-tanning boner joke at this time... and continue]

Allow two hours for an eight pound turkey.... If giblets are not liked in gravy, use them for forcemeat balls, or cook, chop and mix them for stuffing.


I've rendered my own suet many times. Which basically involves boiling fat in a pot on a stove until it is liquid and then allowing it to cool. It was always a for the birds labor of love and will make your kitchen smell like a thousand heart exploding bacon-suns. But I had no idea you could relish it up into a zesty roly-poly and feed it to fellow humans. Until I ran across this old time heirloom formula for:
Suet Pudding:
1 cup suet, chopped fine.
1 cup sweet milk.
2 cups raisins.
1 cup molasses.
2 cups flour.
1 cup currants.
1/4 cup each of citron, lemon and orange peel.
1 teaspoon soda, cinamon, cloves and nutmeg (each).

Steam two hours. This is a very nice pudding. If not wanted so rich, omit fruit entirely or use one cup raisins. Serve with any good sauce either hard or liquid.


[farmer note: I prefer to serve this with a hard rum sauce or a maple fondant, and a pack of commercially sold cigarettes. Also too note: may attract wild birds if served outdoors]

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For the guests who aren't vegetarians:

Calf's Head with Torture Sauce
Take out the brains and lay them in ice-cold salted water. Wash the head thoroughly and cover with cold water, boil until the flesh will drop from the bones; lift from the kettle and take out every bone; put the kettle, with the water in which the head was boiled, back on the range, and add to it a knuckle of ham. When this soup has boiled three hours gently, strain it into a stone jar, and leave it until the next day for mock turtle soup.

Cut the thick skin and flesh of the calf's head into two-inch strips and keep it warm.

Make the Torture Sauce thus: One and one-half pints of brown consomme, one bay leaf, the liquor from half a can of mushrooms, half a can of tomatoes; boil about fifteen minutes and strain. Put it back into a sauce-pan with a dozen mushrooms cut into halves, one truffle chopped finely, and one large wineglass of sherry. Let it boil for five minutes, stirring in at the last one teaspoon of blended flour; boil up once and pour over calf's head.

Garnish with new beets sliced, water cresses or parsley.


[farmer note: if you do not have a stone jar readily available you may substitute an empty five gallon (washed and rinsed) plastic drywall joint compound bucket]

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[farmer note: aka, Boned Turkey Jello. The kids will love it!]

Jelly for Boned Turkey
Strain the broth in which it [the turkey] was cooked and skim off every speck of grease. Let boil for five minutes, then pour it over one ounce of well soaked gelatine. Crack into another bowl the whites and shells of two eggs, juice of one-half lemon, one gill of Maderia wine and whisk them all well together. Add the soup very slowly, stirring fast with a wire whip. Place over a moderate fire and let come gently to a boil. Simmer a few minutes until there is a thick scum like leather.

Hold this back with a skimming spoon while the clear soup is poured into a flannel bag to filter. Set to cool overnight and it will be fit for use.





[farmer note]: Photos are from the Macy's Day Parade circa 1930s. All the recipes above are actual recipes, which appear in my copy of the Gold Medal Flour (Christmas Edition) Cookbook, originally published in 1904. Let me know if - when - you want the recipes for Clam Toast, Prune Kringles or Smelts Garnish.

Happy Holidays!

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Tuesday, November 23, 2010

SBL Turkey Trail










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Sunday, November 21, 2010

SBL Weekend Breaking News Headlines

For Next Week:

= Bristol Palin Eliminated From ABC Dancing With The Stars Competition (AP)

= Sarah Palin Attacks Hikers Near Wasilla Following Daughter's Elimination From TV Dancing Show (Anchorage Daily News)

= Willow Palin Tells Barbara Bush to STFU! Evades Security at Walker's Point Compound and Beats Former First Lady Unconscious with Empty Vodka Bottle. (Boston Globe)

= Emotionally Disturbed Chicago Man and Palin Cult Devotee Kevin "Cupcake" Dujan Sets Himself On Fire Outside ABC Studio in Los Angeles To Protest Dance Contest Decision (LA Times)

= One Dead and Several Injured in PUMA Chocolate Chip Double Waffle Buffet Riot Inside Waffle House in Clarks Summit, PA Following Televised Dance Show. (Times Leader/Abington Journal)

p Local Man Bob Somerby Abducted by Rubes - Developing... (SquirrelNet)

= FOX News and Glenn Beck Implicate Financier George Soros and New Black Panther Party in Secretive Voter Fraud Conspiracy to Deny Bristol Palin Dancing Prize (World Net Daily)

= BULLY PULPIT: Obama Agrees to Suspend Bipatisanship; Announces "Too many white people these days really are motherfuckin' insane" and Agrees to Jeralyn Merritt Plan to Nationalize Televised "Reality" Programming.

= Hell Freezes Over (The Weather Channel)

= John McCain Apologizes to America (USA Today)


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Saturday, November 13, 2010

Open Thread




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Thursday, November 11, 2010

Bob Somerby's bold new pants




Bob Somerby got hisself some prideful snazzy new pants. In case he gets invited to a dance at the grange hall. And so he can look and feel as self-confident as Rachel Maddow.

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Tuesday, November 9, 2010

SBLD




Here's our new Corrente SBL mascot (click pic for closer look): the custom HD Stay Behinder Lounge Critter 2010. The barking munky of SBL Hell.

Everyone gets one. So, when the Wingnut Apocalypse arrives we can jump on our SBL HD Farm-Critters (which I will customize for each of your needs) and we will ride to Vermont to join Bernie Sander's and the Red Clover Militia at the Burlington College Freedom Encampment; the newly designated capitol of the Liberal Emancipation Zone.

Once safely relocated we will be invited to participate in the annual Gathering of the Sap, pilgrimage to the birth-site of the sacred Vermontasaurus and, of course, enroll in workshops on the history of Ice Cream folk mythology and Situationist International art. Flyfishing, sleigh building, snow plowing, pagan woodstove rituals, leaf frolicking orgies, organic cheesemaking, checkers tournaments, state controlled alcoholism, smuggling Wijzonol Bouwverven paint products from the Netherlands by way of the St. Lawrence River and granite farming will be among the many opportunities available once we've settled safely in the New Green Mountain Territory. The invasion and occupation liberation of Shaker Village in New Hampshire will be a primary objective so I urge you all to join the Red Clover Militia as soon as possible.

SBLounge scooter munkies, how they sing down the highway as they travel each bend in the road. People who meet in this narcotic setting are re so hypnotized by the lovely brisk autumn air and the potato potato potato warblings of the HD-SBL Mil-Town Iron that they sometimes forget... uh, forget what exactly the point of this post is (as if there was one in the first place). Uhmm... yeah, so anyway...

consider this an S.B.L.Critter-Scooter open thread.

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Sunday, November 7, 2010

SBL Open Stage

Music Vid: Steve Wold (Seasick Steve) perfoming Walking Man





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Thursday, November 4, 2010

SBL Nature Trail: Loaded for Bear with Harry Reid

Apologies to my readers, both of you, for the absence of a posting during the election returns.


I was in Nevada hunting mamma grizzly with Harry Reid.

Above is a postcard I prepared celebrating the hunt. That's Harry just after he bagged his mamma grizzly named Sharron. The "don't tread on me" flag was Harry's idea. He's really a fun and funny guy around a campfire. He told me stories about how Paul Laxalt and Alfred Regnery were actually homosexual lovers who kept a secret love nest at the Silver Slipper casino and helped Howard Hughes extort Banana Ripple ice cream from the Baskin Robbins family in LA on behalf of the Mormon Mafia. Sure he did.

After Harry finished field dressing his mamma grizzly (using the hunters axe in the photo above) we drove back to his ranch in Searchlight - wherever the hell that is - and handed crazy Sharron over to a team of loyal butchers and taxidermy specialists who would lovingly turn her into tasty cuts of backstrap/tenderloin, bearpaw boots and a small bathroom throw rug.




The photo above - click for a closer look - is Harry in his trophy room with the glorious wall mounted rougue taxidermic remains of Sharron the tea-bear. Sharron Angle, the mamma grizzly who had the misfortune of trying to steal Harry Reid's picnic basket. Heh, indeedy.

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