“So, Do You Like Dinosaurs?”

Posted on January 14, 2025 by Jim

Riverwalk Gym @ the Heritage Hotel, Southbury, CT.  Wednesday,  mid-day, January 8. I had just finished my treadmill walk at a blistering 4.0 pace listening to the Rolling Stones “Don’t Get Angry With Me” and Fritz and the Tantrums “Hand Clap” &c, when it was time to enjoy the Riverwalk’s hot tub, with its Jacuzzi.   I placed the jet strategically on my right knee.  On most days, my session in the warming hot of the Jacuzzi is solo.  What I prefer.  But, on occasion I am joined by a house guest staying at the Heritage Hotel. 

I do my best to avoid interactions with others who I don’t know.  But then there are the unforeseen encounters that become memorable.  For example, how could I ignore this?

“So, do you like dinosaurs?”

This fellah could have asked, “What do you love about quantum physics?” or “Isn’t the breeding pattern of the rose aphid fascinating?” or “Do you like goat cheese?”  But dinosaurs?  He was worth a sideway glance. Which he then took as an invitation to proceed…

“I’m from Pocatello, Idaho and I love dinosaurs.  Have since I was a kid.  The Natural History Museum of Pocatello has some cool stuff on Ice Age Mammals; but I’m a Dinosaur guy first an’ foremost.  Ya’ know how there are guys who are crazy baseball fans an’ they make it a thing to go to every baseball spring training site an’ then follow it up with taking in a ball game at each big league stadiums?  Well, I’m like that with dinosaurs.  And I’ve set my mind to visit the Museums of Natural History of the world!  I’ve already been to nearly two dozen museums including the Museum of Natural History of L.A. County which has a display of a juvenile, a sub-adult, and an adult Tyrannosaurus Rex.  But the best T-Rex by far is at the Chicago Field Museum.  They named her Sue!  Ya know I saw several posts on Facebook of this couple who own 3 little monkeys that they have trained to do all manner of stuff like fetching bowls from the pantry for their snack. Stuff like that.  And these little monkeys are fully dressed in diapers an’ cute dresses or pants. And when I think of Sue the T-Rex I don’t think of her in a plaid lumberjack flannel shirt from L.L. Bean; but in a floral smock with capped sleeves, leggings and a pedicure. Yeah, I’ve been to museums all over the place.  Been to Natural History in New York, an’ Smithsonian in D.C.  I am here in Connecticut to visit Yale’s Peabody Museum in New Haven. They have just renovated their Great Dinosaur Hall.  Originally they had the wrong head on their Brontosaurus, an’ had its huge tail dragging on the ground.  But they got that fixed up now. And on the ground at its tail end is the best part of the display — it’s a Smart Car-sized corprolite!  Do ya know what that is?  It’s fossilized dino poop!  I’m not kidding!  Too bad we can’t retrofit dinosaurs with diapers!  They learn alot from studying corprolites, like what type of food did the dino eat an’ whether it was a meat eater like a T-Rex, or a plant eater like a Triceratops. Triceratops is my favorite Dinosaur.  And from analyzing a Triceratops corprolite they’ve  identified a plant from the Cretaceous period that produces a Sulphur compound called mercaptan.  And get this; it’s the same compound in asparagus that makes our pee stink! Can you imagine that when a Triceratops had to take a piss, which in all likelihood could fill a good sized hot tub… man, the smell  would clear the forest! Well, as I say… I am a Dinosaur guy, first an’ foremost!”

“I can see that.  Diapers on Dinosaurs?  You may be onto something.”

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COWBOY SPAGHETTI & 2022 BODEGA A NOEMĺA MALBEC

Posted on November 12, 2024 by Jim

This recipe is from Allrecipes which hooked me with this intro: “Everyone will love this cowboy spaghetti, a fun twist with bacon, cheese and pasta in a spicy beef and tomato sauce.  The best part is that it’s a one-dish meal, cooked in a cast iron skillet.”   It has a Bolognese-y feel, but less elaborate than my Bolognese recipe in cooking steps, some different spices and far less cook time. Further I switched out spaghetti for fusilli.  OK, Picasso had his “blue period” – I am in my “fusilli period”. I love the screw-like cylinder shape of this pasta.  Fusilli clings to sauces beautifully and it doesn’t require twirling pasta on a fork (with or without the aid of a spoon)… simply stab two or three cylinders with your fork and scoop up some sauce on your way to your mouth.  Then say, “Eeeeee –hah!”  And that’s about as cowboy as it gets!

For a wine I selected a Malbec that I had just tried at a wine tasting I hosted.  The theme for the tasting  was “90pt Wines Under $30”.  It was my favorite wine from the tasting.  Malbec would not be my first choice for pasta dishes.  My go-to would be one from my quartet of comfort food reds: Valpolicella, Barbera, Montepulciano d’Abruzzo or Côtes du Rhône.  But this Malbec is different from any other Malbec I’ve tasted and it paired perfectly with the pasta.

Bodega A Noemía Malbec ’22 (Patagonia, Argentina)
It is neither the straight-forward fruit simplicity of inexpensive commercial Malbec’s, nor is it the highly polished opulent styled upper-tiered Malbec’s.  Rather, this is an amazing blend of Old World balance and restraint with New World flavor interest.  It’s a mineral tinged beauty unlike any other Malbec I’ve had.  I think the Vinous review is excellent: “A bright, purple-hued wine, it offers fresh plum and cherry [mentholated-cherry, my take] on the nose, complemented by delicate lavender and herb undertones. Dry and moderately lean, fine-grained tannins and a juicy mouthfeel lead to a long-lasting, flavorful finish. This is an unusual red within the Argentine context.”

Cowboy Spaghetti

Ingredients
6 ounces of Tanqueray Gin
½ ounce of Noilly Pratt Dry Vermouth
3 blue cheese stuffed olives
A goodly amount of ice
6 strips of bacon
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp fresh ground black pepper
1  pound ground beef
1½ cups beef broth
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
2 tsp tobasco, or to taste
8 oz spaghetti (I used fusilli!)
1 10 oz can of diced tomatoes with green chiles (Ro-Tel)
1 4 oz can of tomato sauce (I used 8 oz)
1 14.5 oz can fire roasted tomatoes
½ cup of shredded sharp cheddar cheese
Scallions, sliced for garnish

Directions
1. Put gin and vermouth into a glass pitcher, fill with ice, stir vigorously while incanting, “You who know all, thank you for providing us juniper and all the other obscure ingredients responsible for creating this sacred liquid!” Strain into a pre-frozen Martini glass of admirable size.  Skewer the olives on one of those tacky cocktail swords, place in glass. Immediately begin consuming.  Now you can begin the food prep, and the cooking!

2. Place bacon in a large cast iron skillet and cook over medium-high heat, turning occasionally until slightly crisp.  Remove bacon to a paper-towel lined  plate.  Let bacon cool, then roughly crumble and set aside.

3. Add onion to the same skillet with bacon drippings and sauté until softened.  Add garlic, salt and pepper.  Stir ‘til fragrant.

4. Add ground beef.  Cook and stir until beef is crumbly and no longer pink.  Lower heat to medium low and sir in beef broth, Worcestershire & hot sauce.  Stir in half the crumbled bacon.

5. Break spaghetti in half and scatter over the ground beef. Pour in tomatoes w/green chiles, fire-roasted tomatoes and tomato sauce over the spaghetti. Spread evenly.  Cover and cook on low for 20 minutes.

6. Remove lid.  Stir and combine the spaghetti and sauce.  Smooth mixture and spread the shredded cheese over the top, sprinkle with remaining bacon.  Cover, let cheese melt.  About 5 minutes.  Garnish with sliced scallions.

7.  Serve. Eeeee-Hah!

Posted in Sandy's Table | Leave a comment

This Election Cycle

Posted on October 2, 2024 by Jim

I’m not a fan of DJT.  But he has correctly alerted us to the cascading threat of the tens upon tens of millions of criminals descending on our borders, many escapees from insane asylums. And who do not come from Sweden, or other good countries. {SPOILER ALERT: I am glad my grandparents got here under the trip wire, arriving in Ellis Island before, when a generation later, Jews seeking refuge in America,  fleeing the iron fist of Nazi Germany in 1939 on the MS St. Louis, were denied entry.   Perfectly understandable.  The State Department, and sympathetic voices in Congress – showing a little anti-Semitism below the hem line – worried that among these Jews there were spies and  the seeds of a Firth Column planted by the very Nazis who sent them into exile.}

Today we are told, tens of millions.  Tens of millions.  Tens of millions (perhaps the entire population of Honduras) , willing to take entry levels jobs just to be here and maybe have the same hope that my grandmother had at age 17 when she traveled by herself from a shtetl in Warshawa gubernia by train to the port of Bremerhaven and boarded a ship to America. She had the name of a cousin in New Haven, and paid for her room and board by being a maid in the multi-family house where her cousin lived.

Tens of millions.  Criminals.  Released from insane asylums and prison cells.  Drug smugglers and rapists.  And here is the crux of the crisis: swimming across the Rio Grande they are welcomed by a cadre of Leftist-Radical-Communist-Fascist-tree-hugger operatives who give them voting ballots and board them on buses to take them to Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin & Arizona where complaint election boards will grant them residency. Voting on Election Day, and then taking the most menial jobs away from good American folk who didn’t want the job anyway.

Oh, my friends it’s happening.  The “steal” is on.  Just look at Connecticut, as blue as the azure sky, and the Nutmeg State is sending an excess of citizens to flood the swing states.  According to reliable sources, 190,000 are bound for Pennsylvania, 165,000 to Georgia, 145,000 to Michigan and 17 to Nevada (my sister’s extended family love to go to Vegas).

Thank the stars in Heaven that there is a watchdog in Mar-a-Logo.

Rumor has it that the population in Texas alone has swelled to twice the population it was in 2004. Enuf is enuf!! I can hear him now: “Not on “T”’s watch!  Folks we got trouble, terrible, terrible trouble.  Trouble! Trouble, that begins with the letter “T” and that rhymes with “T” and that stands for immigration.” (with apologies to Meredith Wilson)

Not for nothing, who was watching the turnstile when Friedrich Trump entered America in 1885?

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Gin ‘n’ Tonic Martini

Posted on May 9, 2024 by Jim

Are you kidding?  A Gin ‘n’Tonic Martini?

To explore new worlds,
To seek out new life and civilizations,
To go where no man has gone before.

First, I am not on a five year mission.  I was just looking to finish off a bottle of Tanqueray Rangpur Gin.

Second, and this must be understood if you go further in this brief essay, I am a committed Martini traditionalist.  This most classic of cocktails is made with gin and, at your discretion, varying smidgens of dry vermouth.  The choice of swapping vodka for gin, even with the endorsement of James Bond, is the path to perdition.  It’s the slippery slope that brings us to Chocolatini, Espressotini, Fruit-Bombatini and other offensive departures from the genuine article.

This, if you didn’t know, is to give folks the opportunity to sip a friendly, less lethal, more appealing (?) concoction from an “up” glass (aka, martini glass) to add, perhaps, a veneer of sophistication to their cocktail choice. Sorry, it’s simply weak camouflage for a drink with training wheels.

Third, in my years past, I  consumed countless gin ‘n’ tonics, particularly during the warm weather months.  PRO TIP: the most important ingredient in a G&T is the tonic.  The next most important ingredient is a plump fresh lime.  Gin is the side show, which is why you don’t have to invest in a fancy shmancy gin to make a great drink – with one exception, which we will return to anon. And then there is this piece of good news:  a restaurant or bar will never (NEVER, EVER) make a G&T as good as the one you make in your home!  Why?  Because there is no tonic from a soda gun that can come close to the fresh taste and effervescence of a newly opened bottle of top quality tonic that you get at your Stop & Shop!! Buy the small bottles.

The recipe for a gin ‘n’ tonic is simple.  Put ice into a highball glass, add a jigger of gin (1½oz), top with tonic, squeeze a wedge of lime into the glass, rim the glass with the lime & drop the lime into the glass.  But, with no more effort you can substitute a “nothing” gin for Tanqueray Rangpur gin.  This fancy shmancy gin is actually worth it.  It’s a lime infused gin that makes so much sense for this cocktail.

We finally return to the matter at hand.  What would happen if we engineer a hybrid of a classic martini with a pedestrian, tasty but still pedestrian, gin ‘n’ tonic?  I devised an experimental recipe: 2 jiggers of Rangpur Gin, 1 jigger of tonic put into a mixing tin with plenty of ice.  Shake vigorously with a solemnity of purpose.  Strain into a pre-frozen up glass.  Finish with a squeeze of fresh lime, rim the glass with the lime, plop lime into the glass.

As I saw things, there were three possible outcomes for this brave new departure where no man has gone before.

One, fail. It ruined a gin ‘n’ tonic, and it ruined a martini.
Two, Winner winner, chicken dinner.  Unqualified success
Three, Interesting.   Sorta like hearing your blind date has a good personality.

OK.  I think I may give this another shot later in the warm weather season, when I might be drinking a gin ‘n’ tonic anyway.

Oh, before I leave.  I went on a blind date once, and the friend who made the intro never once mentioned Sandy’s personality.  Although she did say she was from Brooklyn.

The fixin’s

My sacred mixing “tin”


Richard Parker, my man frog, serves up the finished product

for a more detailed treatise on my Martini experience http://summerofjim.com/?p=110700

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