craveytrain

I tend to have a phonographic memory (that auditory, not porn, for the adjective challenged). Ok, so I just made that up. I’m not sure what you call it, but I tend to remember sounds better than pictures, numbers or any other sorts of things. Maybe you call it aural (again, that’s listening, not oral, you pervs). Combine that with a reasonably decent ear for music theory and it leads to lots of aural deja-vu.

I go to church with my fiancee from time to time. The services we go to are a bit more modern than your average high church in that there’s not a lot of preaching down from the pulpit. I would say a good half to 3/4 of the service is music. Mostly more modern style songs, not a lot of Ava Maria or anything like that. However, at least once every couple trips I find myself leaning over to the fiancee and asking, “Does this tune sound familiar? I swear the chorus melody is from an Elton John song.” Yes, I have just admitted in public I listen to Elton John. Yes, I know the repercussions of such an action hence the reason I made it a point to mention the fiancee in the same sentence.

I find this a lot, with a lot of different genres. I have to say, I used to be a big hip-hop/rap fan, but they really are the worst about it. Of course, it’s called “sampling” and it’s considered a mainstay of the genre these days. I just have more respect for someone that can throw a unique sound behind the more modern lyrics. Though, sometimes my own supposed youth gets in the way of my judgement.

Considering I was born in 78, there was a lot of music made before my time. A lot of really great music. In fact, most of the really great music, imho. So I don’t always hear music in the order it was made. Quite to the contrary most of the time it seems. I remember when I heard Gwen Stefani - Luxurious I wasn’t crazy about it, but was further put off by the fact that she used Biggie - Big Poppa musical accompaniment. I found out later that day the actual tune was from Isley Bros - Between The Sheets. I should have guessed. It’s always the Isley Bros. Man, I hope those guys have a good laywer, cause they should be rich on all the samples people have used of their music.

But the latest (and probably most embarassing) installment in this saga hit me today while I was working and behooved me to write this little article. I was listening to my iPod on random. And when I say random, I mean truly random. I have classical to country to rap to rock to everything in between. A classical track came on, Bach - Menuet in G Minor. I was coding along when all of a sudden a couple bars sounded eerily familiar. Harkening back to my childhood, I repeated the segment, trying to find out where I recognized the tune from. After a couple playbacks, I got it: Zelda. The original Zelda. My favorite video game of all time. That theme song has been ingrained into my head after as many hours as I have dedicated to those pixels. I am sure I have heard that Menuet before, giving myself the benefit of the doubt, the first time was probably in high school. But Zelda, I have to go back to elementry school to remember the last time I played it. Yet another example if inspiration. Though, to be honest, I didn’t knock Zelda down a rung because it didn’t have unique music. Call me out for having double standards, but that was one hell of a game.

And yes, I will own the Wii, and I will buy the Zelda game for it. You can bet on it.

Well, on my sunday night league we finally got a W. I had just about forgotten how those felt. For the record, I went 4 for 4 with no errors at third (probably because I didn’t get any hits at me on 3rd).

I love a good chicken tortilla soup but everyone makes theirs different. I got a base recipe from a fellow culinary enthusiast and web designer, Patrick Fox. He was kind enough to send this to me right before he left town for his wedding. His recipe read like it was going to be good, but you know me, I have to do things differently. Not dramatically different, it’s really more or less his recipe, but it’s got a couple changes that I felt made it a little more… me. This recipe has some spice to it, so those of you that are a bit squeamish, you may want to back off some of the spice.

The Prep time is misleading, as there is a lot of prep, but most of it can be done while other things are cooking to make things more efficient. I put these steps in order to minimize cooking time allowing for prep while cooking. Certainly any prep work can be done earlier in the process as time allows.

Btw, I’m using a new convention. T = tablespoon, t = teaspoon.

• Prep: 5 mins
• Cook: 90 mins
• Serves: 8

Ingredients

• 4 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
• 5 T vegetable oil
• 1 T salt
• 1 T ground black pepper
• 1T + 1 t ground cumin
• 1 t ground chipotle peppers
• 1 T ground coriander seeds
• 1 t Essence
• 2 Q water
• 4 dried whole chipotle peppers
• 1 whole yellow onion
• 6 garlic cloves
• 1 poblano pepper
• 6 oz can whole corn kernels
• 6 oz can tomato paste
• 2 key limes, juice of
• 12 oz can black beans
• 10 corn tortillas
• 2 avocados
• 1 bunch green onions
• 1 pint sour cream
• 3 cups shredded cheese (Mexican blend, jack, cheddar, etc…)

Prep

Heat large stew pot to medium with 3 T veg oil.

While that is heating, rub chicken thighs with mixture of 1 T of salt, 1 T fresh ground black pepper, 1 t cumin, 1 t dried chipotle peppers, 1 t ground coriander.

Cook

Add chicken to oil and brown all sides of chicken. Once browned, add 2 Q water and bring to a boil. Once boiling, reduce to a simmer and cover. Boil for abount 40 mins (or until chicken is done).

Prep

Chop yellow onion. Mince garlic. Chop, seed and de-stem poblano pepper.

Reconstitute dried chipotle peppers. Place in microwave safe dish, cover with water and nuke for a couple mins (until soft). Slice stems off peppers, cut peppers in half and scrape out seeds. Dice up.

Cook

Once chicken is cooked, take chicken out to drain and keep the stock warm.

Heat dutch oven to medium with 2 T vegetable oil. Put in diced yellow onion and minced garlic, saute until translucent (couple mins).

Add half of the diced chipotle peppers, diced poblano, 1 T ground cumin, 2 t ground coriander, 1 t essence & corn and cook for another few mins to soften the poblano peppers.

Add tomato paste & lime juice and cook for 2 more mins being sure to coat everything in paste.

Add black beans & chicken stock from stew pot and bring to a boil. Once mixture is homogeneous, bring down to a simmer & cover cook for about half an hour.

Prep

Add rest of the diced chipotle peppers to the sour cream with 1 t of salt, mix and refrigerate.

Dice up bunch of green onions and refrigerate.

Take chicken off bone. Be careful to not keep any of the gristle or connective tissue around bone joints. This is most easily done by hand. You want shredded chicken. Small bites.

Preheat oven to 400. Take corn tortillas, cut them in half and then in half inch wide strips. Put them on a non-stick cookie sheet and put them in the oven. After about 5 minutes, take them out, mix them around making sure to separate the ones that have clumped together. We are wanting to toast them, so browning is good, black is bad.

Cook

After soup has simmered for half an hour, mix in chicken. Simmer for 10 more mins.

Prep

Roughly chop up avocados. Do this right before serving to keep from discoloration.

Serve

To serve, put soup in bowl, top with tortilla strips, cheese, chopped green onions, chopped avocado and a dolllup of the chipotle crema.

Damn, we lost 19-18 in our softball game this evening. We were visitors and rallied back from 18-9 when time was out in the top of the 6th to tie it up. Still tied, bottom of the 6th, 2 outs on them to take it to extra innings and they hit a little blooper to left center. Left center plays it off the bounce makes a damned good throw to home and the catcher catches it and dives at the runner. The umpire calls him safe and that’s it. Tough loss, but a hell of a game. Can’t be mad about that one.

This is pretty much straight out of the Everyday Italian Cookbook. I usually alter the recipes to suit me some way, but honestly, for a basic risotto with simple flavors, it’s perfect. So I didn’t touch it. I only post it out due to demand.

• Prep: 5 mins
• Cook: 25 mins
• Serves: 4

Ingredients

• 1 qt stock (low sodium chicken or vegetable)
• 3 tbsp butter
• 1 white onion
• 1.5 cups medium grain white rice
• .5 cup dry white wine
• .5 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• .5 tsp salt
• .5 tsp black pepper

Prep

In a medium saucepan, bring the broth to a simmer. Cover and reduce the heat to low.

Chop the onion finely.

Cook

In a large, heavy saucepan (I use an enameled cast iron dutch oven) melt 2 tbsp of the butter over medium heat. Add the chopped onion and saute until tender but not brown, about 3 mins. Add the rice and stir to coat with the butter. Add the wine and simmer until the wine has almost completely evaporated, about 3 minutes. Add .5 cup of simmering stock and stir until almost completely absorbed, about 2 minutes. Continue cooking the rice, adding the stock .5 cup at a time, stirring constantly and allowing each addition of stock to absorb before adding the next, until the rice is tender but still firm to the bite and the mixture is creamy, about 20 mins. Remove from heat. Stir in the Parmesan cheese, the remaining tbsp of butter and the salt and pepper.

Serve ‘em up and eat ‘em.