SMOKE AND EARS

You got to take the 2o minutes to watch this video. Mr. York has been at it for years and his shorts keep getting better and better.
Enjoy!
http://www.southernfoodways.com/documentary/film/smoke_ears.html

PERFECT FRIED CHICKEN

(Photo: Marco Grob)

A couple years ago friends gifted me with the Lee Brothers southern cookbook. I had seen and heard a bit about these brothers from the south making their name in NYC. I had heard that they had tried to sell boiled peanuts door to door in NYC. I really didn't know what I thought about them, and after watching them here I'm still not sure. The thing is I'm not sure what I'm not sure about. But this video is cool. It's about one of my favorite foods with a great little back story. I plan on eating there next time I'm in NYC. Ya got to get past the 30 second ad, it's worth it.
http://www.chow.com/stories/11719

PRIMAL

Don't tell me I don't know how to show my lady a good time.
Saturday night Stacey and I got Primal. We drank beer, ate lot's of meat and sat in on butchering demos. Sweetwater Brewery hosted this event. We ate sliders from grind house, lamb brains from P'cheen and roasted veggies from Farm 255 and more. We also enjoyed watching a master butcher with 35 years experience completely break down a really big lamb in about 10 minutes. Like I said I know how to treat the ladies.

WE INTERRUPT THIS LONDON REPORT......

if meat is murder send me to jail cause i plan on being at this event.

Be a Butcher: Primal
6pm Sat at Sweetwater Brewery: 195 Ottley Dr NE; Buckhead; 404.691.2537
Hit this one-time meat & greet to commune with local chefs (Nick Melvin of Parish; Todd Richards of Rolling Bones BBQ; Alex Friedman of P’cheen...), who'll teach you how to properly butcher whole animals (pig, cow, goat, lamb), cook them using advanced methods over hickory, Applewood, or almond wood flames, and let you gobble up the results. There'll also be 35 pounds of TN-based Benton’s bacon, wood-fired oysters, and whole wheels of hardwood-grilled artisan cheese, plus brews from Sweetwater and an Oregon wine tasting including vineyards like Van Duzer, Daedalus Cellars, and Firesteed, which'll have you boasting Wednesday morning that you're hungover like a horse.
Photo: Stacy Cahill

LONDON PARIS AMSTERDAM AND MOBILE

These are my favorite cities in the world and I just got back from my first visit to London. I have been to the other cities many times, but never to London. It was a great weekend trip. Left Thursday evening and arrived 7 a.m. Friday. Checked into hotel then headed to Tate Modern for the POP LIFE exhibit.

The Tate Modern is housed in an old power station smack dab on the Thames. It is huge with large open space and lot's of small galleries. The Tate Modern is one of the greatest modern art museums in the world. The power station closed in 1981 and if not for some forward thinking folks it would have been leveled and replaced with another residential monster. It was rehabbed into the museum and the Tate opened in May of 2000. Just outside it's doors is the beautiful Millennium bridge. A pedestrian bridge designed by Arup, Foster and Partners. When it first opened it got off to a shaky start, literally. The bridge swayed so much it had to be closed for about a year to fix the problem. I took this picture from the 3rd floor restaurant in the Tate. That is St. Paul's Cathedral in the background. Click on either photo to enlarge.



This next photo was taken on the bridge looking back at the Tate. More on my London weekend soon, please stand by.

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SO ON A LIGHTER NOTE

I know I've got it made. Born a white male in America. That's changing though. Not me and the white male part, but America is in for big changes. In the meantime enjoy some music. Asaf Avidan & the Mojos are from Jerusalem and I can't imagine what their life has been like. Click here and listen to some of their songs.

I DIDN'T SIGN UP FOR THIS

I hate putting shit like this on my blog, but I read it and It makes me mad. It makes me feel helpless, it makes me glad I don't have children. Truth be told it makes me feel a little lucky, maybe I'll be dead before things get really rough. It's a simple problem, read below, K Street, Wall Street, millionaire mayors and congressmen. It's a simple problem, GREED.
I should probably stop reading the New York Times.

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November 11, 2009, 9:30 pm

The Betrayal

ST. LOUIS – So long as Budweiser, the King of Beers, was enthroned in this pleasant and nobly resilient middle American city, the blows of corporate condescension from the other giants who abandoned the Gateway Arch could be endured.

But then, last year, came a kidney punch that still hurts: Anheuser-Busch, which had survived Prohibition and the micro-brew craze, was sold to a Belgian brewer. Bud was now Euro-beer. Next they’ll tell us Huck Finn had a taste for éclairs as he floated down the Mississippi.

Board members, those solid citizens of St. Louis, made a pile in the merger that created the world’s largest brewer. But everyone else lost, including more than a 1,000 longtime employees given pink slips.

I heard the Bud buyout mentioned in the same soured breaths that exhaled expletives regarding the upcoming bonuses that will be passed around this holiday season by Wall Street firms saved by taxpayers — $30 billion in bonuses to the top three investment banks.

It takes quite a bit for Americans to say that the social contract is broken, or look upon concentrated wealth as anything except a virtue.

But we may have reached that breach. Our politics are not simply left and right, conservative and liberal. Never have been. Every once in a while, the great middle of independents are stirred to one side. My guess is, if the drift caused by recent actions continues, the United States will be consumed in the coming year by the politics of betrayal, and the winner will be ahead of the rage.

Right now, a time when only 20 percent of Americans call themselves Republicans and Democrats are shrinking as well, the independents are disgusted with both parties. In large part, it’s because neither one seems to be on their side.

The early warning shots came on Nov. 3, against an ineffective former Wall Street executive, ousted New Jersey governor Jon Corzine, and the billionaire mayor who barely bought himself a third term, Michael Bloomberg of New York. Both felt the back hand of an electorate that feels as if the system is rigged against them.

A year ago, most people were open-minded about the ground-shaking changes that came with the economic collapse. Polls found a slim majority in favor of Wall street bailouts to save the economy. They would listen, watch, wait.

By this fall, the majority were not only against the bailouts, but in favor of curbing pay on Wall Street, and tightening government regulation of same.

The continuous drip of perceived unfairness continues. One day it’s news that Goldman Sachs seems to have stepped ahead of the line of those waiting to receive H1N1 vaccines, prompting questions about why investment bankers were getting doses rather than children or pregnant women. This week, Gallup found one in five parents saying they were unable to get swine flu vaccine for their children.

Another day brings a report that the top banks are raising credit card interest rates – some as high as 29 percent, which would shame a Mob extortionist — even against people who have always paid on time. This is the thanks we get?

If Congress steers through the Great Recession without responding to the thousand points of pain among average Americans, people will see them for what they are in bottom-line terms: an insulated club. Proof, just recently, came from a Center for Responsive Politics report that 237 members of Congress — 44 percent — are millionaires, compared to just 1 percent for the country as whole.

In theory, there’s nothing wrong with a Congress stuffed with people who don’t have to buy health care on the open market, or worry about meeting a mortgage payment. But in practice, it’s a prescription for misrepresentation. And though Congress is now trying to curb Wall Street excess, the reform effort seems headed for K Street strangulation.

Two things will define which way the rage goes next year: health care, and the fate of the feeble economic recovery. Again, forget liberal and conservative labels. In recent Gallup polls, 54 percent of Americans perceived Barack Obama’s policies to be “mostly liberal” and an identical margin approved of his presidency. This in a country where only 20 percent are self-described liberals.

If health care reform gives people a choice, and doesn’t just fatten the rolls of insurance companies, it will be something to run on. If the recovery helps millions of people who don’t have a well-staffed lobby in Washington, it too will be a plus.

History, as always, is a guide for these American moments.

There was once a political party that came out against concentration of wealth. They called for regulation of food, drugs, and big corporations. Called for “square deal” for the average American. And their robust spokesman, the leader of their party, said this of his countrymen:

“There is not in the world a more ignoble character than the mere money-getting American, insensitive to every duty, regardless of principle, bent only on amassing a fortune.”

That party was the Republicans, a bit more than century ago, led by Teddy Roosevelt.

The next governing majority will be guided by independents, and include liberals, conservatives and people whose great-grandparents left the Republican Party a century ago. It will also include a whole lot of Budweiser drinkers, wondering how the world changed so quickly, without them.

I LOVE THANKSGIVING

I really love Thanksgiving!
Probably because I love to eat Indian food. Who doesn't?
I love the holiday season and I'm starting this holiday season off right with a trip to London. Tomorrow, about 5:30 p.m I'm gonna get on a non stop flight to LGW. That's not Heathrow, that's Gatwick, it is the other airport in London. I will arrive about 7 a.m. London time. I'm going with a friend who wants to see an art show at the world famous Tate Modern. My friend is a huge Keith Haring fan and Haring is a big part of this show. The Tate has rebuilt his famous Pop Shop that was once at 292 Lafayette St in NYC. The exhibit is named Pop Life and it runs til January 17th. Andy Warhol is featured as well as Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons,Takashi Murakami and others. I'm really looking forward. I have never been to London and the guy I'm going with once lived there, not so long ago.
Quick trip. I will be back in Atlanta 3 p.m. Sunday. Stand by for a detailed report, with photos.
I love trips like this.

OUR DAILY BREAD

I ain't baked anything since my sisters had a Easy Bake Oven and a light bulb was the heat source. Stacey and I like fresh bread and have no where to get a loaf on the south side. So when I read about a recipe for bread made from 3 ingredients, cooked in a dutch oven, in you home oven, I had to try it. Here is the recipe. I have never been to Sullivan St. Bakery, but I have heard how good it is. Here you can read the article about the guy who invented this recipe, it was in the NY Times.
I haven't tried my bread yet, it just came out of the oven. This is a photo of it, if it taste as good as it looks..........

MORE WORK EQUALS LESS WRITING

And so it goes...... The more I build and paint the less I write. Also we have had a crew of sheet rock artist working on the master bed and bath. It is a very messy job that goes on longer then planned.
Whatayagonnado? This is what I did this week.


This here table is a checker board table. I used an old column for the pedestal and I used lumber from my bed room renovation for the top. I spray painted beer bottle caps for the checkers.

This here is another table made from salvaged materials. The metal top is from the slave quarters at the Oak Grove Plantation just south of Atlanta. Painted black and distressed. I delivered both of these tables this morning.



I painted this here painting this week from a photo a lady gave me. Her good friend grew the veggies and she wanted a painting of them. I didn't think I would like it, but when I was finished I liked it a lot. I offered it as a donation for an auction along with the pig painting. I told them to pick one for the auction.



They picked the pig.

WALKING 'ROUND NEW YORK

Check out this short video, I want to do this. Everyday.

http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/nyregion/1-in-8-million/index.html?hp&hp#/maggie_nesciur