Shambling and Shuffling like Sheep into Eternity

(Warning: rant ahead!)

I love my parents. Very much. I wish I could say that they were veterans of hardscrabble early years during the Depression, but they were actually quite middle-class. They are both now in their 80s and extremely sound of mind, both living together at home after more than 53 years of marriage.

When I gaze upon them and think of these things, my heart wells with fondness.

So how can I explain their slavish devotion to the idiot box? When they were children, there was no TV. Hey, fuck TV, there was barely even radio!

So how do you explain my mother’s robotic addiction to General Hospital and Days of Our Lives, or my father's almost “Hitler-jugend”-like militarism about Jeopardy? To the extent that on Christmas Day everything must be silent in the house at 7 p.m. so that Alex Trebek can hold sway over the populace?

Hell, I watch TV as much as anyone and I don’t want to be casting aspersions upon anyone’s viewing choices. But is it really necessary to be addicted to three different versions of “CSI”, “Law & Order” and some bibulous doctor drama such as “House”? To the exclusion of human interaction?

People like to bemoan the habits these days of our kids. God knows how many times I’ve taken hits from all segments of the population on how much my 6-year-old plays these car racing games (and other non-violent computer games; at least I watch out for that).

But has anyone taken a cursory look at what our parents do for amusement?

I rest my non-Law & Order-inspired case.

Steak For Castaways

This really should be posted at my other blog, Tied to the Steak, but that’s pretty much defunct. Unlike a site extolling burgers, a site extolling steak can get pretty expensive.

But I’m in Japan at the moment, and the urge for Wagyu at its so-called source is strong.

I went shopping for dinner at a local grocery store called Max-valu and checked out the steak choices. They were all pretty frightening, price-wise. And the Japanese obviously don’t like their steaks in 1-plus inch measures, so most of the steaks I saw were about a third of an inch thick — that means around two minutes on each side for medium rare.

But what do you do when the kitchen isn’t your own and you want to have a brilliant steak?

I snagged some family-plot-farmed garlic and sliced about eight cloves of that. Since it was very cold and there was no way to keep the steak warm post cooking I opted to make the sauce first, without the pan drippings -- I'd add them back in later.

They don’t appear to have shallots here, either; Obaa-san had never heard of them. So it was a container of pre-cut scallions into butter, then garlic, then Chardonnay from Chile (!) then a hair of mirin . . . and with some weird Japanese rock salt the sauce was done.

Clean the pan, put sauce on hold and then cook the steak in butter . . . pull its sorry skinny ass out and reheat the sauce and pour over and serve with Grandma’s overcooked rice and it was HEAVEN. I don’t regret one yen of that 1,666 (about $16 US, around 11 Euros).

Just the arbitrary way in which the whole thing came together, the negation of reverent ceremonies to honor such high-priced fare — the better it ended up tasting.

Regret no pictures but you can go to the steak blog to see past ones.

Would that those cuts (expensive though they are) be available in Montreal. Might just rekindle my red meat fetish.

Racquetball

No one seems to know much about racquetball. Squash gets all the attention (and rightly so) but racquetball in the right hands is literally one of the most incredible games to watch, bar absolutely none.

The main reason racquetball has never made it as a TV spectator sport (thus failing to attract sponsors) is that the ball goes so fast that it can’t be picked up by the camera. So basically you end up seeing two guys swinging racquets and you have no idea what’s going on half the time because you can’t see what’s happening to the ball.

But if you attend a pro tournament in person, as I have many times, you will witness such incredible displays of agility and sheer violence — both aural and visual — that you will come away swearing that the players are superhuman. Just watch these guys.

As I said, it’s very difficult to see what’s going on because of the camera, but I think you can see how incredibly fast and exciting the game is. And one hour of competitive racquetball (meaning friendly games, not professionally) will burn off an entire Big Mac with cheese.

This being said, I’m going to get back into it.

Anyone know of any facilities not too far from downtown?

Beardstruck

Well, I didn't grow this beard as a gesture of solidarity with anyone, but I am in transition. Read all about it here.

Avoiding the Leaden Rain

Or, The Last Moments Of 2007