The path to Pastrami is through Corned Beef

I've been craving pastrami lately. You know, the good pastrami. The kind that's thick sliced and cooked for 12 days and makes the air smell like meat and melts in your mouth.  I was at the grocery store today when i had this epiphany: 'Hey wait a minute, I know how to make things(sometimes)!' So i grabbed a brisket. You ever just grab a brisket?

I didn't get any spices though. You know why? cause i live with Nanc. Nanc who has every spice known to man, without a second thought. Spices, flours, weird molecular gastronomy things like xylitol and agar agar and lorazepam (Okay, maybe not the last one). You name it, she'll pull it out of some nook or cranny you didn't even no existed. There's no real food in the house mind you, but boy does she not disappoint on the spice front.

She even had three things of dill weed! I don't know what you need dill weed for but apparently three jars worth of things. The only thing she didn't have was pink salt and i was like, "Wait a minute! i have pink salt from when i made bacon 7 years ago!" So i went down to the basement and found it right where i left it. You may be wondering why it's in the basement.

Notice that doesn't say pink salt. I didn't. I just was so excited I threw 5 teaspoons into a gallon of water and failed at being too proud at myself. It was only just now when i went back in time to see when exactly i made bacon that it occured to me that doesn't say pink salt. It's perfectly clear in this picture:

Dry Cure Rub: Kosher Salt/Sugar/Curing Salt

But it does contain pink salt or curing salt or prague powder or whatever you want to call it as long as it's not Dry Cure Rub. So i think we'll be fine. The Brine is basically 2 cups of salt anyway, so what's a little more salt? And sugar? Who doesn't like sugar? Oh, this is the recipe I used by the way, incase you're so inclined. 

So I made the spice and you actually make enough spice for two batches of corned beef because obviously you're going to do this all the time. I ended up using all our coriander so i just put the extra in that bottle and labeled it in my best handwriting. 

I was going to just throw the whole thing in because when am I going to do this again? But then i thought maybe one day Nanc will decide to make a corned beef, then look into her spice cabinet and say, "Look, my youngest daughter has contributed to my swaray soiree of spices at last! I'm so proud!" But probably she'll see it tomorrow and be like, "What the hell is this shit? Where's the coriander and what happened to all the salt? Oh we still have dill weed, phew."And then 7 years from now when i write my next blog i'll decide to make pickles and be like, "I have pickling spice!" and just throw it in then realize as i'm blogging that it was actually corned beef pickling spice which is not the same thing at all, then i'll shrug and say, "Eh, it'll probably turn out okay."

At this point you may be thinking, "Hey, hold up a sec! I thought you were making pastrami, but that clearly says corned beef. What's up with that?" Unless you read the title where it was heavily implied. Pastrami is in fact, dolled up corned beef (Though pastrami can also be made from the 'naval end' which is right next to the brisket and supposed to be better. Whatever.). Crazy right? You just rub some more seasoning into it, then smoke it (or oven it as will be the case in this scenario) and it's a whole different ballgame.

This is what corned beef pickling spice and salt and water look like when their being heated up.

So now this has to cool to below room temperature so it doesn't cook the brisket. I put it on the back porch because it's snowing so i feel like that's below room temperature.

So now we just wait. Speaking of waiting I was sitting in traffic yesterday morning and I say this gem:

Definitely where i'm sending my kids. Kidding! I don't have any kids. So now the brine is cool enough to add the brisket too. 

So we just put it in the fridge and leave it there forever. Tune in next time (maybe) for when a corned beef evolves into a pastrami. 

Not a Volcano Cake

I'm in California visiting DPL and I was like, "I"m gonna cook a ton!" and then I cooked, like, once. Well, and a half, but I kind of want to forget the half part. So today Princess is coming over and yesterday when i was being overly ambitious I was like:

Then I woke up today and was like, "I don't want to do that shit."

*Side note: did  you know you can't take screen shots of netflix? It's just a black picture where the video is but still shows the controls. I literally had to take a picture of my ipad with my phone which is definitely probably illegal.

Anyway, I was like, "Well we have to do something." So I searched the kitchen and found this:

And was like, "Sweet! I'll make a bunch of different color cupcakes and ice them with different color frosting. Perf! The dye colors are green, yellow, blue, red, and purple:

Clearly you can see two things from this picture. I had peanut butter toast for breakfast and that is not fucking purple. What a disappointment! But also I made way more of the right blue (Cerulean?) then any of the other colors so I was like, "I'll try to make purple with the leftover!" Also this reminds me of the scene in Hook where Peter Pan gets full off make believe food because he uses his imagination. Totally legitimate food source, you are the Pan.

I mixed some red into the blue and was like, "Actually this is kind of pretty, I wonder if this will work in the cupcakes!" Spoiler Alert: It doesn't.

I spilled a little of the Cyan? into the Yellow mini cupcake when I attempted my 'Swirl Maneuver.' And I was like, "Should I try to scoop it out?" And, lets be honest, I would probably just make more of a mess. So anyway:

Tada! Turns out the cupcakes really where purple. Who knew? The red, yellow, and Celeste? are the best ones (personal preference, of course). I think if I were even to do this again I would just use those, but I wouldn't ever do this again, so really the point is moot. While they were cooking I remembered that DPL had three bananas that were browning:

And asked me to make something with them, and I was like, "Shit." So I came up with the brilliant idea of filling the cupcakes. So I looked up a banana filling but it sounded dumb, also apparently most people use plain filling to fill banana cake mix, because they have foresight which I don't. So Then I made a regular filling with cream cheese, butter, a shit-ton of powdered sugar, and milk. Then I added two bananas and regretted it. So i tried to thicken it with some flour and that failed, so i read up on fillings with bananas and heard a little something about gelatin, which I'll pick up with Princess when she finally decides to wake up and get her ass over here. Anyway this looks like someone vomited up porridge:

But everything is gonna be okay. Except when I try to remove the cupcakes from their shells. 

I guess you should never try to force anything out of it's shell, but, like, really?! It even says don't spray them!

I mean it's probably because I slightly overcooked them, but still! I'm done with you Vibrant Collection. 

But also now what the fuck am I gonna do, cause I can't fill them! And then it erupts with in me, like an eruption, it comes to me. I'll make a Volcano! 

So then princess arrived:

and so did Mongo. Mongo is Harvey's son (like, for serious) so he probably was just upset his mother was unrepresented. Understandable. 

And then we went shopping. I was like, "How are we going to make the frosting brown? " But then thankfully we needed Gelatin which made us go down the baking aisle and we discovered the existence of pre-made CHOCOLATE frosting. Duh. So then we just bought that and a ton of other stuff we no longer had to make, and went with it: 

Then we did our Mexican beer tasting:

Princess here! let's take a break from well thought out rational discussion and go on a rambling journey about beer. i'm gonna be talking about this taste test for a minute while my bff collects her thoughts and starts her outline. so the first struggle with this test we had was how to make it blind? but luckily my friend here had a genius plan: tinfoil! so we started wrapping them, and i had a technique down and told her to quit trying cuz i'm gonna make it perfect. and i did (accurate), except for the fact that they kept trying to unwrap themselves from their cozy little blankies and there was no tape to be found(In, like, the entire fucking house. We did find some really cool markers though.  DPL for Christmas I'm going to buy you an office supply organizer... or better yet: some tape!). but we persevered, and wrote numbers on the aluminum foil and the tops so we could keep going back to test. luckily the tin foil really wanted us to succeed today so we encountered no issues and got to tasting.

The first ones we tasted were all pretty mellow and lightish, imo good for daytime drinking, and then towards the end they got heavier. and all were pretty mediocre really. so we wrote down our thoughts on cute pieces of paper that my buddy here personalized with fantastic custom art <3 there were a couple that i straight up hated, and one that i loved, and a few that were pretty decent if you're into day drinking, which i'm not but sometimes a girl gotta do it ya know.

so for me the winning beer, #6, was the closest to the type of beer i normally drink, which is ipa ofc, how unoriginal :/ but this beer was heavy with a clean finish and no aftertaste, which is easy because i'm super picky about aftertaste. the second beer, #4, i chose because it was bland and had very little aftertaste which is good for daydrinking, which as i said a girl just gotta do sometimes. it reminded me of champagne a bit (disagree). the third and fourth beers tied, #1 & #3, they tasted soooo similar but one was a touch creamier than the other but to my taste had a slight metal aftertaste, like can  (#3). the rest of them i wasn't a huge fan of so i just ranked them until i was left with the worst tasting at the bottom.

and that's the story of my taste test. i think my girl is ready to go on.

So that was very thought out and nuanced. My thoughts were more like, "Is this Tecate? Maybe." It wasn't. So I'm pretty with Princess on the fact that this is good day drinking beer, but not really a beer I would sit down to enjoy. Anyway we differed on most of our thoughts but agreed that Modelo Negro was definitely the best (#6) Princess had #4 second which i had last so agree to disagree. That one is called Moatejo which I'd never heard of before and never care to again. For my 2nd/3rd and Princesses 3rd/4th we both had #1/3 which is Pacifico and Modelo (aka model especial) which I agree with and am not convinced they're not the same beer. I actually couldn't tell you what beer I was drinking when I was drinking it, but i've always said Modelo and Pacifico were the best Mexican beers (*cough Scotty *cough). Anyway I had Corona, Estrella Jalisco, Tecate, and Moatejo as my order for the rest. Princess had Tecate, Estrella, and Corona for hers. Princess actually tasted the Corona and was like, "Eww, this tastes like Corona." Which was accurate. Clearly she just doesn't like Corona.  

So while princess was writing this I was constructing the Volcano, but first I was fighting with banana filling. But apparently gelatin does not a Banana Icing make, so I just randomly dolloped some into the volcano and held it together with a can of cheese whiz (aka Betty Crocker orange icing)

Just ignore the banana splooging out. So at this point princess takes over:

Pipe that shit! 

So good! Magma time: Wait, but first Cocoa Krispie texture:

Now Magma:

Smeared:

Pre-made tubed icing is the best. Here's Princess with the water:

here i am sprinkling like a champ. the water was fun to make, i just squirted it all over the cookie sheet and then smoothed it out with a knife, and sprinkled sugary sparkles all over the edges to make it look like beautiful waves crashing from afarrrr. ahhh i can feel the salty spray from here.

we also made some trees out of twix and apple gummies. we used toothpicks to make them extra secure but gosh they were unwieldy. falling over constantly and getting icing all over them, it was a mess. like seriously chocolate frosting is all over everything, my hands and my face and my shirt and the counters and my bff, you get the point. 

So here's some more magma:

And a perfectly finished Volcano!!

Clearly amazing from all angles. Anyway Scotty brought home some dried ice so here are some totally awesome eruption shots:

 The End.

The Art of Nation Building or How I learned to Stop Thinking and Trust The Nanc

It's that time of every few years where we set up the one and only: Pappas Family Christmas Village! It's kind of a big deal... well in certain circles (ie: our house). Apparently i agreed to this earlier in the week but have no memory of it and therefore was not mentally prepared. It is a picturesque day for it though.

I've mentioned and even shown complete pictures of this majesty in previous posts, but this year you'll have the "pleasure" of going through it's recreation step by step. 

According to my mom DPL and i have an arrangement from our youth that stipulates she will get the village and I will get the trains. This is okay with me on account of I don't like owning things and also putting up the village is a real bitch. Also Scotty loves Christmas more then, like, anyone on the planet so it makes sense that she would have the opportunity to truly deck the halls every year in village form. In which case she should probably just take the trains too cause what's a village without a train?

Step 1: lug a ton of boxes up from the basement.

All the Tupperware you see in this photo doesn't even begin to cover it. Also don't be fooled by this picture!

All this + four boxes we didn't realize were missing until halfway through the set up. Then we had to go search for them in the nasty poop crawl space you can sort of see in the back of the basement picture. Also this is all only village stuff, no ornaments or light or anything else. 

This is the primary reason we have to make a conscious decision to village. And by "we" i mean Nanc decides then enlists me when i'm oBviously distracted with something else and answer something probably along the lines of, "Sure, whatever you want," in an effort to be left alone.  

The real reason is because her 18 month old Granddaughter is coming for Christmas and she wants to fill her with memories she won't remember. This is also why we've raised the village to waist height and installed door locks on all the lower cabinets in the kitchen. The picture will be adorable. 

Step 2: Clear a space.

Originally we were going to clear off the mantle and piano, but Nanc decided she wants to get the piano tuned so DPL can play it while she's home. I don't think DPL has played the piano in years and is likely not aware/prepared for this. I'm pretty sure she reads this blog though and should consider herself warned. 

I was also Okay with this on account of being morally against taking down any glamour shots of myself or DPL. The people must not be denied! 

We went with the corner. 

 

At this point Nanc decides we should push the long couch against the far wall and starts to sort of hip-check the side of it before I point out that the wall she's trying to push it too has about 10 boxes in front of it. We agreed to move it later. 

Step 3: Set up a base.

So we staple blue sheets to a wall and set up these collapsable tables and this is when the inevitable bickering begins. Nanc starts to cover the tables but not drape the white in front so you can see under them. Then i say something and she's like, "I'm not done yet!" and "there's limited sheets!" So I go to the closet and bring back some white sheets to which she replies, "Not my good white king sheets, what are you nuts?" or something along those lines. So I shut up and start the other table with the limited 'village approved' sheets. Then she starts telling me how to do it and i'm like, "You do your table, I'll do mine." And we both seem to agree that that's acceptable. At this point Phil comes in and asks, "Who's prom are we re-creating?"

It is kind of "Starry Night Banquet Hall." We actually talked about getting stars to hang on the blue sheet. This gives me the opportunity to sneak off to the kitchen are remember my motto, "Chill out and have a La Croix." When I come back Phil looks at me and asks, "Do you need a bourbon chaser?" and I politely decline saying, "No thanks, I think I need my wits about me for this," also it's 1pm. Mine's the table on the right.

Around this point I remind Nanc that I'm writing a blog and that she should feel free to take pictures of our process, which I realized later means she will only be taking pictures of me in awkward positions. So I was like, "Whatever... I just won't use them." And she said, "Oh, you'll use some of them or I'll post them all on your facebook page." So I was like, well at least there's no plumbers crack in this one:

and she said, "Oh there is, if you zoom in properly." Please don't. 

So now it's time for the train, of which i've prepared an epic pattern of two trains interweaving threw each other with figure 8's and...

the tracks don't fit on the table, which results in a new design layout and also the Christmas Tree going in the other room. 

So we put the tables parallel to each other allowing for exactly one pattern where the train tracks fit. For reasons I don't understand we left the outermost table the one that doesn't have the sheet going to the floor but honestly whatever.

It is apparently at this point I got so captivated by the village that I forgot to take pictures. So we decide to put the longer of the small tables on top of this new platform to give it some height. This requires covering it in satin which we should have done on the floor:

clearly. Hopefully this covers the photography blackmail demand. So then Nanc decides it's just not maximizing our space enough and we need to put another smaller table on top of that one which is oBviously a prime location for a ski slope. Throughout this whole process Nanc has been sporadically ironing satin in another room, something that i've failed to mention, but is an integral part of this story. So while one of these ironing events is happing I take it upon myself to start setting up the top most layer of the tri-table tournament. I think this makes sense because it's probably best if my 69 year old mother doesn't attempt to balance on two collapsable plastic tables. I'm doing just this when Nanc comes back and says, "I'm going to have to override you on this one Chris." And I say, "My name's not Chris." Suddenly I have a pretty good idea of what it's like growing up with Nanc as your older sister. But i guess we know who wears the pants in this village. This conversation follows:

Mom: I don't like the ski slope coming around the side like that, let's move it here.

Me: But then there's this weird space gap between the hill and under the table.

Mom: We can put a house there.

Me: I'm pretty sure you can't see through a hill, plus the ski slope now ends on a cliff.

Mom: We can fill in the gap with powdered snow.

Me: Why would there be powdered snow floating above a house.

Mom: It'll be fine.

At I just let Mayor Nanc do her thing. So we get the slope set up.

Mom: Why don't we put the brewery between the two slopes? That way if you need a break from skiing you can stop and have a beer.

Me: Sounds good, sign me up.

Mom: Then we can put the kids building snowmen over here. Then you can say, "Hey kids why don't you go build a snowman?" and they'll give you some peace while you finish your drink.

Nanc is full of parenting gold. Finally we finish the upper tables and i'm like, "Grab me the figures that go with these houses," and Nanc is like, "No, I don't want to put up any figures until the end, they're too fragile." So then I'm like, "Yeah, but we're not going to touch these two levels again and I won't be able to stand on the table when we get the bottom set up." And she says, "No, I don't want to put any figures on until the whole things done. We can use a step stool." And I don't care anymore. So we're here:

Do you see them?!?

She put up two figures! And in the most accessible place! No comment. Also at some point Phil has started watching a football game in the next room and is yelling to us what is happening for reasons neither of us understands. He apparently thinks we suddenly care about football. We don't. 

So at this point I think we both agree that we've had enough of each other  we're tired. So Nanc says she'll finish tomorrow with our neighbor and I have never been so happy to have to work on a Sunday. Then she says, "Oh, look at the ski slope! It leads to nowhere! Oh well, I'll just put up a fence or something. 'Ski at your own risk!'"

5 hours and a case of seltzer later and we're here:

To be continued.