We needed tough lessons as children. An occasional playground fight was expected as the norm, and if we complained to our mother that we were being teased, we were treated to this glorious aphorism: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.” My mom used to say that all the time, one of the seemingly endless adages she had at her disposal to deal with any of life’s problems. To this day I think long and hard about the practical application that dogma had on my life.
The idea that you could actually choose whether or not to be hurt by words: that was huge for me. Even though it has been repeated ad nauseam for generations, “sticks and stones” really is a powerful bit of philosophy to a kid. That’s one of the great things about being a parent: you can spout nothing but clichés, and yet, to your child, you come off as one of the great thinkers in Western culture.
–from MEAN DADS FOR A BETTER AMERICA, by Tom Shillue
Yesterday’s video failed to upload. We’ll see how this one does.it was called “by the fire…with no fire”
Thank you for reminding me. I wanted to talk about our post-show hangout in Memphis and here it is:
“Reverse Sear”
I’m a big fan of Sous Vide.
It’s extremely easy to make a mostly perfect steak. I say mostly perfect because it’s not always easy to get a good crust on it.
Mostly because of the way it is cooked. Once you remove a piece of meat from its Sous Vide vacuum bag, it’s ‘wet’. You have to dry it with paper towels. Although it doesn’t get it dry enough to put a good sear on it. The residual moisture has a cooling effect.
I therefore have tried the ‘Reverse sear’ method.
You cook the steak via indirect heat, around 250 F, and then sear the steak when it gets ‘close’ to your target temp. The searing and ‘carry over’ will get you to your target temperature, making it perfect.
I’ve a propane pizza oven. It was just $150 extra when I bought a 36” Blackstone griddle. It was normally $350.
I fired up the pizza oven on the lowest setting and loaded the steaks on a 1/4 sheet tray and rack. I had to continuously play with the oven’s controls to keep it at or near ...
Reminder: I think Tom Shillue (& Jamie Lissow...dig, dig) will be on the panel on "Gutfeld!" tonight (Mon) if they finally air last Friday's show.
