Brett Food

2017
The Year in Food

There Are Three Kinds of Food

I figure there is:

Food I make for myself;
Food others make special for me;
And food made by total strangers in exchange for money.

I'll cover the first type in the next section, the second type in the section after that, and the third type might just be the only post I make in this food stub for all of next year. After all, I'm thinking about never going to the same restaurant twice. And a project like that deserves some sort of write up, I would think.

But that is then and this is now.

My Food

The next four images are of the Duck Dinner, all spread out on the table, meaty overview, here

I have found that any root vegetables will do, as the world gets more prosperous, and food becomes more diverse, perhaps once again, almost anything that passes as a root vegetable will work, a wide variety, and it does not matter if an item or two is not what one would eat alone

I test the meat by twisting the bone and if it comes out of the socket easily, the cartilage, and therefore, surrounding meat is done, but idiots, lawyers, and courts being what they, it is uneconomical to recomend using any method other than a themometer, cooking the meat to the USDA approved level, but I routinely overcook my meat, it is just better

stuffing is bread or rice or some sort of starch, mixed with something lighter, say fruit, and cooked in the juice, but not the fat of the bird

Duck Dinner

Ah, yes! This was one of the feasts for the year: a delicious duck dinner.

Place duck and root vegetables in a large pan and cook at 350° for two hours... and well, it's always worked for me.

Yeah, at this point, I would just be guessing as to the meat, but like it says below, I was given access to a freezer and I worked that sucker for a week or two, maybe three, until there was nothing left but complete scrap.

Slop

Some folks call it stew, I call it slop. I was given access to a freezer, no holds barred. And this is what resulted.

Whatever mixed with whatever cooked for a few hours with an extra cup or two of water: a.k.a. slop.

But don't let the name fool you. Along with whatever else, there were kumquats, giving it all a nice sour-fruit flavour.

Yeah, I think, and I really have to do this write ups within a week or two, or I forget everything, I cooked this all in one pot, the pork chops resting on top of the apples, onions, and raisins, certainly looks good to me, would you not agree

Pork Chops ala Brett

Oven baked pork chops on a field of onions, apples, and raisins... with maybe a hint of cinnamon, but I can no longer remember.

I like crispy pork chops.

And I like juicy pork chops.

Or actually, what I like is crispy pork fat and juicy pork meat, which is a difficult combination to achieve.

As I recall, this was juicy throughout.

So, one out of two ain't bad.

So, it is just meaty, extra meaty, stew quality meaty, spaghetti sauce watered down by half or more into a soup, delightful, wonderful, fantastic, great, a taste sensation, everything I want in a soup and more

Spaghetti Soup

Ah, now this... this was a wonderful creation: a few pounds of roast beef, chuck, or whatever, a package or two of Italian sausage and a jar (just the jar) of spaghetti sauce (because that was all that was handy) mixed with a half gallon of water (maybe more)... and the flavour from the sauce and sausage was enough to infuse the broth throughout.

I mean, this stuff was good.

I should really make this again.

The Food of the Gods
um... er...
The Food of the Goddess
that is

A note I found on the ground, having nothing to do with me, just liked the way it looked, reading in day glow orange on a field of leaves, I bought it you can cookd it

Listen Up

That note is just something I saw blowing around in the wind... and I like the way the picture works.

Other than that, I did not make any of the following... nor do I recall buying it, though maybe I did... but most likely, I didn't.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I didn't.

Fried Chicken

Oh, my!

Does that ever look good!

And it was, fantastic!

Bread dough, so not pastry as I would have liked, twisted into an eight pointed star, which looks fantastic, stuffed with chocolate, but turned out a bit dry, too bread like, go figure

Star Bread

Eh, it looked better than it tasted. I mean, it tasted good enough... but not great. And let's be honest, one is looking for great.

On the other hand, drenched in custard and it was decadently delicious.

I like lattice topped pies with the criss cross of open dough, the cherry filling spilling through, an excellent pie, decadent, I think I ate this with cheddar cheese, the real stuff, and eggs for breakfast

Cherry Pie

Ask for a cherry pie and you get a cherry pie.

That sucker did not last long.

A simple, well, I did not make it, so I am calling it simple, apple pastry swirl, that was sweet and crunchy and fluffy all at the same time

Apple Swirls

Yes!

Please!

Again!

Nice and sweet apple filled danishes, the bottoms nice and crispy. So, what we are saying is, the juice from the apples dripped down, but rather than becoming soggy, the sugar caramelized.

Oh, my!

Yes!

Please!

Again!

I Eat
High & Low
Far & Wide

two bananas set out on a low concrete wall, obviously, in my opinion, left for the enjoyment of others, which I did, so thanks

and a pile of free lunches, which in many ways were far more appetizing looking, but then, not, as I did not avail myself of this bounty, and there were a good dozen or so, scattered about, along my walk that day

In the world of myth, sometimes kings try to pass themselves off as peasants... while these days, more often, the reverse is true.

Anyhow, the above represents found food.

I ate one of the bananas on the left... and did not die, left as it was by someone for some random hungry stranger, which in this case, was me.

But I did not eat one of the prepackaged lunches on the right. And who says there are no free lunches? As I'd already packed enough food for the day... and well, who knows how old that mayonnaise was? Still, in the picture, that orange sure does look good to me.

Eh, maybe if those sandwiches hadn't been left on top of a garbage can... but then, if they had not, I would not have known they were free for the taking.