Oysters Bienville, They May Just Change Your Life

I’m not sure, but “Oysters Bienville” must be French for ”Oysters so good they’ll make you slap yer Granma.”  These oysters can convert the most extreme oysterphobe into a ravening oysterphile.  Of course, as in so many things, the secret is in the sauce.

Erin eating oysters and liking it!

I post this recipe, not because I ever expect to make this myself, or expect anyone reading this to make it, but so the reader will appreciate the effort required to put a dozen of these Half-Shells of Heaven in front of me when I go to the Broadway Oyster Bar and plunk down my credit card.

Recipe as published in Sauce Magazine , courtesy of the Broadway Oyster Bar’s John Johnson

Makes 1 Dozen Oysters

1 cup heavy cream
2 oz. fresh shrimp shells
4 Tbsp. butter, divided
4 Tbsp. diced onion or shallot
2 Tbsp. freshly chopped garlic
2 ½ tsp. Marsala wine
3/4 cup diced mushrooms
1/3 cup diced fresh shrimp
1 ½ tsp. Cajun spice
1 ½ tsp. paprika
1 tsp. sea salt (preferably sel gris)
2 Tbsp. flour
12 oysters, preferably Blue Point
Grated Parmesan cheese

For the sauce:

• Heat the cream, pour it over the shrimp shells and let steep for 30 minutes.
• Strain and discard the shells, keeping the cream warm.
• Melt 2 Tbsp. of butter in a saucepan.  Add the onion or shallot and cook until slightly tan.  Add the garlic and cook until aromatic.
• Deglaze the pan with the Marsala.  Add the mushrooms, shrimp, Cajun spice, paprika and sea salt and cook until the mushrooms are soft and the flavors are well developed, about 4 to 6 minutes.
• Create a blond roux by cooking the flour and remaining 2 Tbsp. of butter for about 4 or 5 minutes until it is golden. 
• Add the reserved cream to the mushroom mixture and bring to a boil.  Add the blond roux, mix well and cook for 1 minute.

For the oysters:

• Preheat the broiler.
• Shuck the oysters, placing them on the half-shell face up under the hot broiler.
• Once the oysters start to curl on the sides (about 1 minute), remove from the broiler and spoon the sauce over the oysters.
• Place the oysters back under the broiler and cook until the sauce bubbles.
• Remove from the broiler and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.  Place the oysters back under the broiler for a minute or two until the cheese is browned.

I’m pretty sure they’re good for you, too.

- Poppa

Books and Bodyguards

One of the best things about living downtown is that interesting people sometimes drop by your neighborhood.  It never happened in the ‘burbs.  This week the neighborhood hosted Jimmy Carter and his entourage while he signed books a block from home at Left Bank Books.

Most Left Bank events we’ve been to have been pretty laid-back, though some of the larger celebs have been less so.  This one was highly regimented.  You didn’t get to go unless you bought Mr. Carter’s latest book We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land, from Left Bank.  When you bought the book, you were given a ticket and told to report to the building across the street from the bookstore for queue management.  You could show up any time after 3 PM and the former president would start signing at 5 PM.

We didn’t head over until Nan got home from work, a little before 5.  The line was around the corner at the bookstore, but considering the stature of the author, it didn’t seem too bad.  Then we realized most of the line was still in the store across the street.

You had to show your ticket and your book to get into the building.  Once you were inside, you had to find the end of the line.  What looked like a mob of people was actually one long line serpentining around a huge open area.  As the line on the sidewalk accross the street was processed, they would escort another group of 50 people or so over to the store.

Once you were in the sidewalk line, things moved pretty fast.

Inside the store you were cautioned to have your book opened to the title page, and as you approached Jimmy’s table, you just handed your book to a person who handed it to another person who handed it to Jimmy for signing.  There was no opportunity to actually interact with the former President and no “Who should I make this out to?” individuality.  The whole process happened so fast you didn’t even stop walking while he signed your book.

There was no picture taking in the line either, but after you had your book signed, you could go to the Designated Picture Taking Area and take all the pictures you wanted.  I didn’t notice this bodyguard giving me the gimlet eye until I got home and downloaded the pictures.

The main thing to remember when taking pictures is, keep snapping the shutter.  I finally got a fairly decent shot of Jimmy on the 30th try.

Now, to read the book.

- Poppa

Saltimbanco, Ginger, and Curry

On Sunday we accompanied Nan’s sister Mary Jo and our friends Kayte and Scott to the St. Charles Family Arena for a performance of Saltimbanco.  Saltimbanco is a Cirque du Soleil touring show, the oldest of the touring shows still on the road and the second Cirque du Soleil show we ever saw.  In 1992 we saw it twice in Atlanta when it was being performed in the grand chapiteau (big top).  Now it’s what Cirque calls an “arena show” because it’s being performed inside local stadiums and arenas.

Seventeen years later, it was still a magical experience for us.  The show has changed, but for the better.  The acrobatics are more daring and elaborate and the music seems to have darker overtones.  I actually found it to be a very emotional experience.  It evoked early memories of Cirque du Soleil, before it was ubiquitous, before the Internet was in common use, before we’d ever seen anything like it, and before we had any idea who these crazy people were.  We just knew we were entranced.

After the performance, we returned to Scott and Kayte’s house for dinner.  We’d rendezvoused there before the show so we could carpool to the Arena.  It gave us a chance to load-test the Fit.  We learned the Fit can fit five average and above-average-sized people AND still make it up a fairly steep grade.

Kayte had prepared an Indonesian meal for us, a beef curry often included as part of a Rijsttafel (rice table), a traditional Indonesian/Dutch meal dating from colonial times. 

The meal was prefaced by Ginger Vodka Gimlets, extremely flavorful and made with fresh ginger.  Then Kayte set out the garnishes for the curry.

The salad was crisp bibb lettuce with goat cheese, tangerine slices, walnuts to taste and a light champagne dressing.  Cool and refreshing.

The pièce de résistance, beef curry on rice, garnished with peanuts, green onions, freshly-ground coconut, cucumbers, hard-boiled eggs, and mango chutney.  The beef was fall-apart tender and wonderfully seasoned.

Altogether, a perfect 4-F day (food, family, friends, and fun).

- Poppa

Do Do That Hulu That They Do So Well

The long nightmare is over! Once again, we can watch (almost) current TV on demand, complete with the oh-so-essential Pause function, while ensconced in our big ol’ TV-watchin’ chairs.  But this time we’re not at the mercy of DIRECTV or any of the other Big Cable minions of the Devil.  And the best thing is, IT’S FREE!  Sort of.  Ya gotta have the bandwidth. * See the Boring Stuff if you want to know more about bandwidth.

After several months of frustration, I finally bit the bullet and had a member of the Geek Squad come out and tell me why I wasn’t able to get my HDMI cable to work between our PC and our HDTV (it turns out I was NOT supposed to use the Expletive Deleted PC setting on the TV).  Now our 1080p HDTV functions as a really high-resolution giant PC monitor.

While it’s great fun being able to blog from across the room, my real motivation for this was to watch our favorite cable channel shows on free PC TV.  Now we can enjoy new Battlestar Galactica episodes in style and comfort the morning after they debut on the Sci Fi channel.

While Erin was here last week, we watched Battlestar Galactica while huddled around the laptop, just like Neanderthals huddled around a campfire 50,000 years ago, or Hippies huddled around an old RCA Victor 40 years ago.  As we huddled, Erin told us about a site called hulu, where there is a huge amount of video content, both movies and TV, both old and new.

There seems to be some kind of Harmonic Convergence going on here.  Internet TV was the subject of a recent CNN headline story, and millions of people around the world heard about hulu during a Superbowl XLIII ad.  I’ve also tried some of the Netflix Instant Play features now that I can see them on a big screen.

There are still some down-sides.  The streaming video will occasionally hang and the quality of the images isn’t as sharp as DIRECTV high def (the Netflix Instant Play features look better and have been more reliable, so far).  There are supposed to be some HD shows available on hulu but I’ve mostly been watching old episodes of Lost in Space from the sixties, so HD hasn’t been a priority yet.

The hulu stuff isn’t commercial free, but the commercials are few in number and brief in duration, at least for now.  They are also not diverse and make hulu look like a front for the DoD.  I must have seen the same six Air Force ads twenty times each by now.  Unlike Tivo, you can’t fast-forward through the commercials, though you can see where they will be in the progress meter at the bottom of the screen.  If you try to jump beyond the next commercial, you’ll be routed through the ad before you can get to where you want to go in the program.  Gotcha!

I suspect this is going to get a lot better as additional shows jump on board and streaming reliability and image quality improves.  It’s also probably going to get a little worse as advertisers figure out this is where their rice bowl is going to be in the future.

Damn, I love being alive in this day and age.

- Poppa

* This is the Boring Stuff

Hulu requires a minimum download bandwidth of 1,000 Kbps (kilobits per second) and recommends a bandwidth of 1,500 Kbps to watch most videos.  To give you an idea where this fits into The World, AT&T Basic DSL is rated at 768 Kbps.  You might be able to watch most of the clips with this level of service, but you won’t get any sympathy from the hulu support people if you have trouble.

AT&T’s next highest package supports 1,500 Kbps.  The clips in hulu’s HD Gallery are encoded at 2,500 Kbps.  They recommend a download bandwidth of over 3,500 Kbps to stream those.  You don’t see those speeds until you get into the Pro or Premium DSL plans.  I think cable modems are comparable.

If you’re not sure what your bandwidth is, Google “bandwidth test” and a bunch of free bandwidth tests will pop up.

Things to Do With Your Hat – Part 1, the Wearing of the Hat

Those who know me, know I’m a diehard galeaphile (hat lover). I’ve always mourned the death of hatwearing.  Up until the 1950s, for a man to go outside without a hat or head-cover of some sort was about as unlikely as him leaving home without pants.  A hat did more than keep the rain and bird crap off your head, it was a statement of style and character, even social class.

I was nine during the Civil War Centennial in 1961 and everyone was getting into the spirit.  The men grew beards and there were all sorts of commemorations and ceremonies.   I got my hands on a cheap replica of a Union kepi and wore it everywhere until I outgrew it.  Throughout much of the ’70s and ’80s I wore a black leather “Tevye” cap I found in Aspen in 1973.  And my old friends from The Atlanta Pipe Band are still carrying the emotional scars left by my unrelenting pith helmet campaign.

Shortly after we moved to St. Louis in 1999, and what with needing to deal with those Midwestern winters again, I purchased a winter hat at a local outdoor recreation store called The Alpine Shop.  The hat met all my criteria; unusual, stylish, black (but with colorful accents), covered the ears, soft, and non-scratchy.  I was happy with both its appearance and feel.  It never entered my mind that there was any question about how it should be worn.

I wear it with the flap toward the back and the brightly-colored vertical panel centered on the forehead (as in the left-hand picture below).  Since I purchased it, I’ve seen two others, and in both instances they were worn with the flap to the front (as in the picture below on the right).

At first glance, it doesn’t appear to matter any more than someone wearing their baseball cap backwards.

But when the wind begins to blow and the ears get cold, the method on the left (mine) has obvious advantages.

a). the ears are covered, and,
b). the likelihood of walking into trees is reduced.

I don’t know who those guys think they are, walking around with their hats on backwards.  I’m going to continue to wear mine as I have been until someone in authoritah informs me that form is required to triumph over function.

- Poppa