Alberty's Blah Blah Blog

There are so many things that I was sure I would not experience. Having a kid changed that. Now everything is up for grabs.

There was a time when I could walk around and be sure that I wasn’t trailing the faint smell of urine. No more.

But one recent experience came totally from the pale of disbelief.

I went in to his room one morning to pull him from his crib and get him ready for the day. The room was particularly oppressive with that general baby poostank. He was happily standing in his little chosen crib corner, elbows on the rails, merrily burbling convincingly about something.

We had our usual brief good morning conversation (he was probably 15 months old, so he was speaking way over my head — I nodded a lot). Then I went to lift him from the crib and move him to the changing table. When I set him on the changing table I felt a strange coolness on my arm.

I did what I usually do in those instances: I pulled my forearm to my nose to smell it.

It was dark in the room. I miscalculated the distance, and my forearm bounced against my upper lip.

I have a mustache.

I accidentally ground some very loose and quite unpleasant baby poo into my mustache. In essence, I gave myself a dirty sanchez.

Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would have occasion to say that phrase: “I gave myself a dirty sanchez.”

It was so surprising that I googled the phrase “I gave myself a dirty sanchez” because, seriously, who before me would have such an occasion.

Thirty-five people, apparently. The quoted phrase “I gave myself a dirty sanchez” garnered thirty-five hits on Google. Granted, not one involved that same sort of incident with a father and his baby — most were of either a sexual or frat prank origin — but thirty-five?

I nearly had to shave. The smell finally started to dissipate after the fifth mustache shampooing.

I guess I have to be prepared for any eventuality now, especially with the other kid brewing now.

There may be an accidental or, even worse, emergency upper decker in my future. I hope not. I’m simply not that agile.

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Yes, it’s true. Julie and I went out looking for a new mini-van after Thanksgiving. And anyone who knows us probably knows what that means.

We are expecting child number two.

We were barely able to pack all of the stuff that we mysteriously acquired over Thanksgiving into our Outback. I’m pretty sure that our post-Christmas packing will become an utter impossibility without a cargo-space upgrade. And once the zygote comes to full fruition, comfortable travel will be beyond the pale, unless emergency measures are embraced.

Well, needless to say, swirled into this miasma of transportative financial concern is an overwhelming joy and excitement at our new Albercainty Project Expansion, or APE, as we are calling it.

I will be 42 when lil-spud gets sprung, which is, of course, the answer to life, the universe, and everything. So, even though I am also aged and decrepit, I find that number to be quite auspicious.

Now even though we’ve had all the preliminary tests, which say, “Yea, verily thou art with child,” today is our first time to get to hear the hearbeat. So …

Also, Julie’s family supposedly has a habit of twins.

That fact does give me pause.

None-the-less, there are few things that I find more attractive than a pregnant woman, especially if it’s my wife. So I’ve got a pretty good six months ahead of me.

And this is probably the last time I’ll have that joy, so I should savor it.

Right, honey?

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Sorry for the missed post yesterday. I am still recovering from an old testament styled weekend illness that laid me low. It was a righteous plague of food poisoning. I’m pretty sure it was broccoli, though it could have been some old Mexican rice from lunch.

Yes, I am sure it was food poisoning. I have had it about six or seven times in my life. Having said that, I’m not usually a puker, so when it happens, I remember it.

This is a pretty stupid statement, but I really hate puking. It actually makes me angry. It is the absolute loss of control, that feeling that some power other than myself has total control of my body. All I can do is open my mouth and welcome the inevitable eye-tearing release.

Some of you may remember that I was home, single-parenting it with my son. So that was a challenge. It was bath night, so we went for it. Having had this experience before, I thought I could fit the bath in in-between, shall we call it, porcelain sessions. Ah, the best laid plans of mice and men. As the water was draining from the tub, the terrible tummy monster gripped my insides.

As I was already on my knees beside the tub, the move was pretty easy. I felt a little like I was on a lazy-suzan.

“Okay, son, don’t put your hand in the drain.”

Swivel.

“Blauauaughughughughughuburble. Ptew!”

Swivel.

“Good boy. Good boy, standing there like a little man. Play with the bubbles.”

Swivel.

“Blaauaugle! Gglarhble. Oh, god… Ghrauauauauauaauubleh!”

Swivel.

“Yes, you can pee in the tub. Everyone does it.”

Swivel.

Swivel back.

“No! No! In the tub! In the tub! Oh god …”

Swivel.

“Blauuuuuuuuuuugh! There is nothing left how can…Oh, god… Blaauauauauaauauuagh!”

So, that was exciting.

But, thankfully, heroic friends came to the fore and took him that next morning so I could catch up on a little sleep.

It was the recovery that laid me low. Wow, that took a couple of days.

Anyway, I’m sorry for missing yesterday. But I will be taking the rest of the week off. I just need a little time to recharge.

So, Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. Hope you get to spend some time with the ones you love.

Hope to see you back here next Monday.

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Friday Pie-Day: Banana Cream Pie

Let me first say that this is not a pie for the faint of heart. Which is perfect, because the person who requested this pie is a steely-eyed life commando.

It is not for the faint of heart because this pie is a full on fat-filled, dairy-laden, velvet-mouthing, obese-inducing, culinary orgasma-rama. It’s pretty good.

I admit, at first I was not that jazzed about this suggestion. The only good banana cream pie I ever had was at a little diner in Okmulgee, Oklahoma called Coleman’s. I was probably nine years old. It was actually that memorable. But their coconut cream was even better.

Every subsequent banana cream pie has tasted like it was cobbled together with box pudding. It has been cloying, gelatinous and had some kind of manufactured after taste.

So, I really researched this one. I put some of my recipes side by side and decided on Emeril Lagasse’s. Well, most of Emril Legasse’s. You know how I like to screw with things.

I added a little cinnamon and a little nutmeg. I also made my own crust.

This is time-intense pie. You need to be serious about making this one, but it is a big pay-off. It will take you two days.

Because it is so time-crazy, I am going to break it into its four sections as four separate recipes. Got it?

Here is The Crust recipe:

Preheat oven to 375º.

Mix all ingredients together and let it sit for a couple of minutes.

Press it into a 9” pie pan

Bake it for 10 – 12 minutes.

Let it cool.

Okay, now for The Cream:

Combine 2 cups of the cream, the milk, 1/2 cup of the sugar, the vanilla bean, and the vanilla seeds in a large heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a gentle boil, whisking to dissolve the sugar. Remove from the heat.

Combine the egg yolks, eggs, cornstarch, and 1 cup of the sugar, in a medium bowl, and whisk pale yellow in color. Set aside.

Whisk 1 cup of the hot cream mixture into the egg yolks (this is called tempering). Gradually add the egg mixture to the hot cream, whisking constantly. Add the cinnamon and nutmeg. Bring to a simmer, stirring constantly with a large wooden spoon to cook out the cornstarch and the mixture thickens, about 5 minutes.

At this point the mixture started to glob up. It looked like it was curdling. So I let it go for a bit and then removed it from the heat, then I hit it with my hand blender (whisk attachment). Totally smoothed it out.

Strain through a fine mesh strainer into a clean bowl. Yes, you read that right. Emeril is a bastard for this. My arm nearly fell off. But it does a couple of things. First it removes all the detritus, like the cinnamon bits and the vanilla bean. It also smoothes out any globules that may have formed. So, all-in-all, bastard move that it is, it is a good thing to do.

Cover with plastic wrap, pressing down against the surface to prevent a skin from forming. This is really important.

Chill in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours. I did it over night.

The Assembly

Cut the bananas into ½ inch coins.

Spread 1/2 cup of the custard over the bottom of the prepared crust, smoothing with the back of a large spoon or rubber spatula.

Arrange enough banana slices in a tight, tiled pattern over the custard, pressing down with your hands to pack them firmly.

Repeat to build a second layer, using 3/4 cup of the custard and enough bananas to cover, smoothing down the layer evenly.

For the third layer, spread 3/4 cup of custard over the bananas and top with the remaining bananas, starting 1-inch from the outer edge and working toward the center.

Spread 1 cup of custard evenly over the bananas to prevent discoloration.

Cover with plastic wrap and chill for at least 4 hours or overnight.

Okay, so I had left over custard and bananas left. So I soaked a bunch of Nilla Wafers in some Godiva Chocolate Liqueur for about a minute (no longer or they fall apart). Then I lined a medium ramekin with the soaked wafers. Put in some custard, then sliced bananas, then custard, then sliced bananas, then custard. Then I topped it with more soaked wafers. It’s still sitting covered in the fridge. It is calling me.

The Whipped Cream

In a medium bowl, whip the cream until soft peaks form. Add the remaining 2 teaspoons of sugar and the vanilla extract and whip again until stiff peaks form.

Pipe the whipped cream onto the pie. I liked the star dollop piping.

The Over-Doing It

Scald the half-and-half and butter in a small, heavy saucepan over medium heat. Remove from the heat.

Place the chocolate and vanilla in a medium, heat-proof bowl.

Add the hot half-and-half and let sit for 2 minutes, then whisk until smooth.

Put into a squeeze bottle (or you can just drizzle with a spoon, but the bottle makes it infinitely easier) and drizzle over pie.

The Cutting

Dip your knife in warm water between each slice.

Orgasma-yum!

I would check to see what the wife says, but she is in Boston. That, and if she actually ate this pie, the evil god Lactocon would rend her asunder and use her writhing body as a battle horn to call the demons of Methania together creating a host that might very well kill us all. So…

But I say it was worth it.

NOTE: Wanted to add a little shout out to the MTG for watching the kid and chatting so I could get this pie done. Kudos and a piece is on the way.

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Got a couple of things going on today.

The wife is in Boston on business. Here is the irony. She has no wanderlust at all. She goes to Japan every other year. She’s got conferences twice a year, and really all she seems to want is to be home. Which, of course, is great.

I am usually engulfed with wanderlust. I loved hotels. I love getting out there and seeing new things, eating in new places.

I also went to college in Boston. So we had decided that it would be cool for me to go. But, alas, life got in the way and it was not to be. So I must admit that I am filled with a bit of envy.

Another bit of this hodgepodge is my appreciation and admiration for the single parent who can do it well. This is certainly not the first time it’s been the boy and me. My wife was away for nearly three weeks over last summer, so I get it. I understand how it works. It just always seems to up the sense of responsibility. Also, most of the time I just don’t feel creative enough to

And the third hodgepodge. My boy is growing. How do I know, other than the obvious? We were in Target today and he nearly brought me to my knees. Not due to his scalpeline intellect, although that has sometimes occurred. No, no. His legs have gotten quite long.

Well, he likes to ride in the carts. He likes it so much that sometimes he sings and kicks his legs. Today he scored two points.

I’m sure that I didn’t yelp as loudly as it felt. I’m sure that it only took a few seconds to recover. And I’m sure that the guy behind me was probably laughing at something else. But my son so enjoyed my reaction at his “lucky shot” that I could hardly be angry with him. I actually found myself laughing too, though I’m sure the tears were part of a different reaction.

Finally, tomorrow … the pie is … oh … my … god!

It is the first pie request, so that makes it pretty exciting for me. Hope you get back soon and happy. I’ll save a piece for you.

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This has always been one of my favorite comfort foods, even though it comes out slightly different every time. It’s just no one of those dishes that you shouldn’t measure, you know? It’s easy and it should stay that way.

Shepherds Pie, or Cottage Pie because it has meat, in England, hasn’t been around as long as I thought would have been. I was thinking it was medieval,  but I didn’t even think about the late introduction of the potato to Europe. So this dish hasn’t really been around since the mid 18^th century.

Supposedly the term “Shepherds Pie” was first coined in the 1870s.

This is what you need:

Mashed Potatoes

Okay, this recipe is super easy if you have a good amount of leftover mashed potatoes, but if not…

Take whatever potatoes you have lying around. I like a mix of potatoes and I make it rustic, but you can totally go smooth if you want. But I don’t. So I steam a bunch of patotoes. This last time I steamed some fingerlings, reds and couple of Viking potatoes.

I mash them with butter/margarine and a little chicken stock. Add in a lot of salt, a lot of pepper, and some onion powder. The mashed potatoes must taste good. Otherwise why bother?

Filling

Brown the bacon, add some butter, then brown the onions.

Reserve onion mixture. Then in same pan brown the ground chuck, add back the onion mixture.

Add in some sage and thyme and salt to taste.

Add in the carrots and cook for a few minutes.

Add in a bottle of Guiness. I like to add in a whole bottle then thicken with corn starch.

Add in frozen peas and a handful or two of oats and cook for a couple of minutes.

The Pie

Pour the filling contents into a casserole dish.

Cover with the mashed potatoes and smooth out sealing the filling into the dish.

Pour the egg over the mashed potatoes and make sure all the potatoes are covered in egg.

Bake in 375º oven for 30 or so minutes.

This is one of my simple pleasures of Autumn. I hope you enjoy.

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I love listening to my wife play the piano.

This may come as a great shock to many, though mostly to her.

I don’t know if it’s some kind of weird pastoral domesticity or what. It affects me like a hearth fire on a dark winter day. It’s comforting and warming.

And she would be the first to admit that she is no virtuoso. There is even sometimes a labored and measured feeling to the melody. But I think that is part of what really pulls me. I think she plays simply because she loves it, and that comes out, even through the sometimes belabored tempo.

And there is a new winky-dink in the whole mix. Now she is playing for our kid. That has added some strange magical and unexplainable note the whole experience. He’s only 17 months old. But he sits next her as she is playing and he will plunk along with her.

It’s some strange mojo, man. It’s like listening to an old familiar tune kissed by the fingers of John Cage. She will be playing some Bach or Haydn practice piece, and there will be this odd atonal high pitched-drone that will suddenly — and off tempo — fly into a forceful flurry of notes as the practice piece continues undaunted underneath.

I never thought I would be a fan of avant-garde music. How things change.

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I am excited to finally tell you The Galadahnia Web Project is on its way to getting funded.

My guess is that you are wondering what The Galadahnia Web Project is. Not surprising, since I haven’t really been discussing it.

I have completed a novel entitled Darnan, the first in an eco-fantasy trilogy entitled The Galadahnia. It is a 90,000 word novel that might be described as a fantasy bildungsroman, in that it follows a young dwarf on a journey that focuses on his psychological and moral growth.

Darnan is a novel that had been swirling in my mind for years. I actually had written what was the original first five chapters — which became the new first three chapters —about six years. I had been working on them when I was still with The Barcalounger Cowboys of St. Columcille’s writing group.

Finishing Darnan was the impetus to take my first year off teaching. And it was a great year for me. There were days I could get out a good 1000 to 2000 words. I was writing every weekday, nearly finishing a chapter a week.

Darnan really took off for me and began steering the story in ways I could not have imagined. It turned into a trilogy of its own volition. And I am finally ready to begin working on the second book, which is already outlined.

But back to The Galadahnia Web Project.

This idea has been percolating for a year or more. But, like most things I think up, I am utterly unqualified to do it on my own.

Here was the idea. I wanted to create a web site based on Darnan, where the chapters would be serialized weekly. There would also be a dramatic audiobook available for download.

There would be an accompanying web page with an atlas of the world I created and perhaps a set of appendices or some kind of encyclopedia that might be linked hypertextually to the serialized text.

Finally, there would be a third page that would be devoted as a “fan site.” Okay, I hate saying this because it assumes a projected following to something I’ve written, which really smacks of outrageous ego. But if I were following a writer online and found a site like this, I would think it was totally cool. The idea here is that fans can upload their story spin offs that occur in the world of Galadahn. They can upload art and music and could create chat rooms. Maybe they could even suggest new towns and villages and create parts of the encyclopedia or add details to the world’s map. I was really jazzed about this portion of the idea.

But, alas, I am no web designer. That is where the funding comes in. I have found a web designer who seems pretty excited about this project. But, of course, it costs.

So, today I am launching The Galadahnia Web Project funding site on Kickstarter.com.

If you haven’t heard of Kickstarter, you really should have. It is an almost transformative idea. It is an open funding grant site, where people put up projects, funding goals, and finishing dates, then hope that people fund them. It is an amazing thing to see.

So, please go to the website, Kickstarter.com (you can click this link), and give my project a look. If you like it, please fund it. And more importantly, tell people you know about it.

This is a dream I’ve had for a while now. I sure would like to see it happen.

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Friday Pie-Day: Bourbon Maple Pecan Pie

Okay, as most of you know Thanksgiving is coming up. Something that has always been a staple at my family TGs has been Pecan Pie. I love the stuff, but there is always something cloying about it. Some years it makes my teeth feel soft.

I just happened upon the phrase Bourbon Maple Pecan Pie in, I don’t know, I think it was Real Simple magazine. It seems silly that this is the first year that I read about this pie because it sort of seems like a no-brainer now.

I found a ton on recipe’s on line, most of them following Martha Stewart’s version word for word. That sort of made me want to steer clear of that one. Then I found a vegan version, but it used corn syrup, which I am definitely not into.

Finally, I happened upon on from a web site called Barbara Adams: Beyond Wonderful. Yes, the name of the web site makes me a little nauseous — in the same way that some Pecan Pies make my teeth feel soft. But liked her recipe: It had more maple syrup and more bourbon than the others. So her recipe is what I used for my base.

So, the critique: I really liked this pie. I think it is the best one yet. My wife and I disagree on this. She still dreams about the Chocolate Pie.

This pie is the most complicated flavor-wise, which I particularly liked. The first thing that hits is a bit of a citrussy bite. This comes from the orange zest, but also from the hit of orange blossom water that I’ve been adding to things lately.

There is a breathy smooth nose of bourbon to the chewing that is only placeable if you know about the bourbon. This is enhanced by a middle sweetness that is just right for me.

There is a soft grittiness to the internal custard that I quite like. I have always found the smooth, toothless, gelatinous middles of most Pecan Pies (especially the mass-marketed variety) to be almost repulsive.

My only real problem with this pie is the crust, which is totally my fault. I used Alton Brown’s Applejack crust —except with Bourbon as my liquid — which wasn’t the problem. The problem is that I overworked it in rolling it out and didn’t parbake it long enough.

So, make sure that you parbake your crust until it’s done (which I guess isn’t parbaking).

Okay, here is the recipe:

Soak the pecans in enough bourbon to cover them for at least an hour. Then let them dry for at least 2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Roll out the piecrust and place it in the pie pan. I used a tart pan because it looks cool.

Spread the pecans on a cookie sheet.

Place the piecrust and pecans on different racks in the preheated oven. Bake both for 10 minutes. The crust can take longer, so keep an eye on things. But make sure to remove the pecans before they burn. Remove and cool both completely.

Turn the oven down to 275 degrees.

In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, brown sugar, maple syrup, bourbon (I used the bourbon from the previous pecan soaking— orange rind, vanilla ½ teaspoon of orange blossom water, and ½ teaspoon salt.

Whisk in the cooled butter.

Roughly chop one cup of the toasted pecans and add them to the egg mixture.

Pour the mixture into the prepared pie shell.

Place the rest of the pecans decoratively on top of the pie, making sure to coat the pecans in the pie mixture.

Sprinkle with another pinch of sea salt. This is key.

Bake for 1 hour.

Cool completely.

Serve with freshly whipped cream flavored with a few teaspoons of bourbon and sugar to taste.

Let’s see what the wife says:

The filling is delectable, not too boozy. But the crust is eh…not flaky, just there.

Yup.

Don’t know what pie is for next week, so email suggestions.

Also, hoping for a big announcement Monday. Stay tuned!

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