Adventures with anrkst.

To help it along I’m using some of my latest homemade, black as molasses, bone stock…



Zippty do dah and just under an hour…..



Who says soup and summer don’t work? Y’all drop by sometime…..

 

A series of mistakes.



Mistake #1- Walking past the bulk bins in the fresh produce section…



Mistake #2- Deciding those would go good with a couple of quarts of venison from the freezer….



Mistake #3- Thinking that using a Lodge 14” deep well 10 qt iron pot outside on a day when it’s 100f was a good idea..

 

Mistake #4- deciding that there wasn’t enough variety to really make a good pot full…



Mistake #5- Letting this one convince me he was actually going to do something besides be a trip hazard.



Mistake #6-…lying to myself that I wasn’t going to absolutely pig out and fall into a coma on the couch in the AC!

 

Oh man - that looks amazing!

 

I’m glad the lesson wasn’t completely lost on somebody!!

 

I’m a person who like playing with food and messing around in the kitchen, and I’m going to be using a new knife sometimes. The logic behind this will be more clear in the following weeks. This is just an introduction and preview..



This is a Rada French style Chefs knife. It’s from the “budget” end of the spectrum. It’s stainless, thin but decently stiff.
It arrived perfectly ground with symmetrical edges. It was absolutely straight with no warp. It has a poly/plastic handle.
It has a complete full length tang. And it’s 100% made in USA.



It was reasonably sharp and came up to scary sharp in just a few strokes on my 25+ year old Black DMT butchers hone..



Nice and smooth…so people will think your freaky (and leave you alone. . )

 

Budget food too. I like to process this down in sections, freeze it, then keep it in large Tupperware. It probably wouldn’t be much work for even the poorest and dullest of knives but I thought it would be a clue as to how the plastic feels when slightly oily or wet…



I had good lighting here to show the thin profile. I rather like the thin flat stuff like the original 3’s & 4’s so this kind of appeals to me….



Zipped thru with no resistance. This will last a month or more the way I do it.

 

It’s rare that I just cook a piece of meat. There’s always vegetables. This daily stuff is where seemingly “instinctive “ skills come from. It’s the 1000’s and 1000’s of repetitions that build it.



So you’re saying you DIDN’T go to the gym today?…and you DIDN’T stay there for over 3 hours?…and you DIDN’T push thru 21.97k total cardio miles? I see. Hmmmmmmm…..

Now sure, You can have nice cutlery. There’s Henkel’s, Shun, a dozen good factory made brands. You could get a nice handmade. I’d love to have Daizee make me something. But don’t completely discount something that works perfectly fine just because it doesn’t have a 1/4 of your paycheck price tag. I like this one. I’m going to use it…I’ll let you know if I change my opinion.

 

Every year the kids manage to find me something cool for Fathers Day…this year I decided to be different and start my Sous on his own way to culinary madness…

He’s always ready to help, Always want to know why I’m doing something…


He said “Hey! It’s a…cooking pot?!” (Close enough. )


and a cook can’t work without some proper utensils right?


A proper and personal chefs knife of his own seemed right too…


Gave instructions and helped him run 2 seasoning cycles on the carbon steel…there’s potential here…dangerous potential.

 

I’m working on another project…but in the meantime..



You’d think I had a drone-cam, but no, just a really cute and talented photographer!



This will need a finishing brush. These should work.



Can’t get er done without my bud.

 

Sometimes creation is just standing over the heat and making it so…



This is the place to start..



We’re southern. We’ll eat some shrimps broiled in butter…



..and, that “chicken in every pot” is a real deal down here.

 

Not long now.



Vegetation and cast iron. They go together.



Meat trifecta, vegetation, and cast iron. Now that’s a happy family.



I’ve been doin mental gymnastics for a bit to get a decent Paella on the gas burner, because building and cooking on a wood fire in direct Texas summer sun is NOT a good plan. This tastes like success.

 

That looks awesome.

 

A neighbor friend had 4-5 pallets of sod delivered, he said I could have the empties if I wanted them.



Into the Cave of Inspiration.



Prying, banging, measuring, cutting.. made from 100% free recycled pallets.



Assisted by the official noisy sawdust spreader.

 

Sawdust spreader

 

Thought you’d get a laugh out of this Bushie, While I was pouring out buckets of sweat taking these apart in 100+F temps I found this printed on the runners.


They sure came a long way to become a stove table almost on the gulf coast didn’t they?

 

Today was a day for something fast and easy. (It is woof murder hot right now)
Pulled a Fried Rice recipe out of thin air…


once I knew what I wanted, I knew what I needed. ( no, I’m not confused..why would you think that?)


im going to try belly flopping on the tile. It must feel good.


this is a party if I ever saw one.


wow! Does this look like 2 cups of rice, 2 zucchini, 3 carrots, 1 celery, 4 green onions, 1 huge yellow onion, 2 bell peppers, 3 whole chicken breasts, and half a dozen clove’s of garlic?! (There was a container of leftovers funny enough. . )

 

Why so little garlic?