i had a heck of a busy day yesterday,
just like every day.
but,
it's not every day that i have a heroic new heaping helping of heavy-handed,
heartwarming, hot, home-cooked hottness that goes way off the charts.
oh, wait...
actually,
now that i think a little baby bit more about that-
it IS close to almost every day that i do that.
ah, haha.
the thing is, kids,
yesterday,
because it was my day OFF from tattooing on the titanic,
i had all the available daylight at my disposal.
yes!
that's what makes all my food just look and feel a lot more expert.
those bright-out light-out afternoons in NOvember are hard to come by,
especially in a rainshowery unpredictable sh!t-chilled mess,
with warm air, cold rain, and fog rolling down from on high-
y'know?
yeah, man, new england weather is kind of an A*-hole;
therefore, when the gettin' is good, you'd better get on it, and get it on.
that's for realsies.
i knew i had to make the most of the time i had on hand.
so i got started early,
and i ate early,
and i had an appreciably awesome feast for me, all by myself.
ummmmmm yeah.
check the teleport:
KAPOW!!!!!
*
dudes,
those potatoes were the TRUTH!!!
mmhmmm.
red, blue, and yellow fingerlings, sloooooooowwwwwww roasted in olive oil,
with a little seasonin' tossed around on there, (s&p, GPOP, cayenne)
with grilled-up leeks, and baby bits of acorn squash.
potatoes are dope.
that's real.
if you're not into potatoes, you're probably the unhappiest person on the planet.
no foolin'.
crispy on the outsides, and steamy within, they had all the right flavor,
and the roastin' all took place, under foil, at 350F, for like, an hour.
they were almost nutty in their crinkly skins,
and i know i was definitely going nuts about them.
*
that salad?
molto expert!
arugula, quartered sweet orange grape tomatoes,
thin slices of english cucumber,
a teentsy-weentsy dash of white balsamic,
and butter-toasted pepita pumpkin seeds,
with shallot sprankles,
and thick slabs of fried garlic?!?!??!
c'mon.
there's no good reason to wimp out on wonderful food.
i can't do it. or, at least, i WON'T.
*
the main event was no joke,
even though the name of the game was JESTER SQUASH!!
i'm serious.
check that handsome sunovab!tch out up close:
WORD!!
halved, seeded, cored-out, and hole-poked, salted and steamed in shallow water,
covered,
for thirty minutes, at 350F,
(with the potatoes right next door)
while that was poppin' off,
i had that stuffin' getting ready to rumble.
heck yes.
1 cup of diced homemade seitan;
1 minced small yellow onion;
2 cloves of garlic;
1 roughly wrecked medium carrot;
1 chopped stalk of celery;
GPOP;
a splash of soy sauce;
fresh parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme;
a T of nootch;
1/4 cup mashed squash (i had acorn, i used acorn);
1/2 cup chopped pecans, plus 8 or so intact halves for garnish;
everything, in one pan, with olive oil, over medium-high heat.
...when the big action gets sauteed,
it gets all kinds of good, and then, as it caramelizes, and browns,
it gets even better.
y'know what else?
too much is the right amount.
so,
when the squash was out, and the stuffing was in,
the whole mess got black peppered,
a few of those pecan halves got placed strategically on top
olive oil was drizzled,
and then it went back in the oven,
uncovered,
for fifteen MORE minutes.
that made it sorcerously supreme in it's succulence, for sure.
and they got the parsley, and the herbs, to sexxx 'em up, as well.
AND a drizzle of custom uber-elite white bean SAUCE to take it to eleven.
boom!
yeah!
a cup of broth,;
a handful of small white beans, roughly 2/3 cup;
a shallot;
a giant clove of garlic;
a T of flour;
2 T of nootch
GPOP,
and olive oil, simmered until thickish,
and stick-mix whizzed-around by hand-held immersion blender until creamy.
get ON this, guys.
now.
you need it.
white bean gravy goes on everything.
....y'better listen to me.
***********
i've got one of those busy days where there's zero chance
that awesomeness will happen naturally, incidentally, or even intentionally
during the work portion of the program.
believe it or not,
just because i have a cool job, or so i've heard,
i'm somehow still slogging through all the sh!t-salad that nobody else wants to handle.
i mean,
call me an A*-hole if you want,
but a tattoo shop where nobody wants to tattoo
should probably be called something else, instead.
i'm doing what i can to stop-gap these huge lapses in labor,
but, i mean, i'm only one guy,
even if i'm a worthy warrior poet
who happens to handle his business like a brutal barbarian horde.
even then,
i still have days like today.
it's all really happening
all of it,
including all these damed dudes i'm tattooing such impossibly dude-like
doo-doo butter on, for too-long hours of each and every day,
i guess it's just a matter of endurance.
how much can i handle?
and will the studio collapse before i do?
time will tell,
but it speaks so quickly, elapsing in ellipses that eclipse human lips,
who'll eve be able to understand it?
hard styles, long nights, early mornings, dog walks, and dinners-
every day and every night and everything is grey.
NO THANK YOU, NOvember;
never quiet, never soft.....
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