The two were charged with being Felony Stupid.

You spend a lot of time seeing more of your fellow drivers then you would often like too.

Like the time Mona and I were driving down the road next to a woman who had her dogs leash hanging out of her car door, bouncing along just inches from the rear tire.  I swear to you, if a dogs face could express panic, this pooch had it locked.

But never in my life have I ever seen anything even remotely like what I read on The Smoking Gun yesterday,

Colondra Hamilton, 36, was pulled over last Tuesday evening in a traffic stop triggered when cops noticed she was driving a 2008 Pontiac with overly tinted windows.

That’s when officers noticed that Hamilton’s pants were unbuttoned. And she had a vibrator in her lap. Questioned by cops, Hamilton admitted to engaging in auto erotic manipulation, and revealed that she had also been watching a porno movie that was playing on the laptop of a friend in the passenger seat.

Jesus, where do you start.

I guess that all that can be said is that there is a whole new definition of “Friend” that I was previously unaware of.

Maybe I need to make the T Shirt.

“A true friend holds your porno while you jerk off in traffic.”

Perhaps Colandra’s mug shot explains it all.

Just call her Sticky Fingers

Yes, its been a while, but with so much going on this summer, it is hard for me to know where to begin.  I think I got a case of the busy’s plus more then a little burn out on all things political.  It is obvious to even the most jaded observer that the much vaunted change we were all expected is not coming.  Lets face it, our new administration is proving itself to be just another shade of the same old thing we have come to expect from Sodom on the Potomac.

Not that I am complaining.  Life has been pretty good to me lately.  My relationship with Mona (AKA Bacon Betty) is going like gang busters.  I couldn’t be happier and we have been having some awesome adventures together.  We are making new friends, trying new things and generally carrying on like a couple of teenagers.

My depression comes and goes.  Good days, Bad days, with most laying in that in between place that most of you are lucky enough to live in full time.  It feels good to be a more frequent visitor.

Then there is the big news.  Really big.  You could even say life changing.  So much so that I am still coming to grips with it.

I am single.

On my own.

Responsible for no one other then myself.

In other words, divorced.

Five years ago The X and I went our separate ways.  As of yesterday, it is legal.

Not that I have had any regrets.  We have lived our separate lives and headed in very different directions.  She is now Born Again and headed to Uganda next month for missionary work.  I guess that is what being married to me will drive a woman to.

It is such a minor thing really, hell, I have been calling her my X Wife almost forever and yet, I put off making it official.

And now that it is, well, it is almost anti climactic.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that is not having any kind of emotional impact on me, other then the tremendous relief that I will no longer be responsible for anything she might do.

Every region of the country has it’s own take on BBQ.  One of the tastes I have never explored is the slight sweet and sour flavor of Carolina style BBQ.  I decided to give it a try with the pulled pork I smoked on Sunday.

It got its usual rubdown with yellow mustard and then my own spice rub.  After six hours over hickory and another two in the oven, wrapped in foil, my Boston Butt was fall apart tender with a great black crust.  Rather then shred it, I decided to chop it to retain more substance.  It took about five minutes work with a cleaver to reduce the roast to small juicy morsels.

Now at this point I would have doused the pork in a sweet tomato based sauce and this is where i took a turn to the left.

South Carolina is known for it’s mustard based BBQ sauces.

After a little hunting around, I found the following recipe for “Big Daddy’s Carolina BBQ Sauce.”

• 1 cup prepared yellow mustard
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup light brown sugar
• 3/4 cup cider vinegar
• 1/2 cup water
• 2 tablespoons chili powder
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 teaspoon white pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne
• 1/2 teaspoon soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons butter

Combine all ingredients except butter and soy sauce in a medium saucepan, bring to a boil and then simmer for twenty minutes, stirring frequently.  Add the butter and soy and simmer for ten more minutes.

Now I have tweaked it just a little bit as the product I got was just a little thicker then I would have liked, so I upped the water from 1/4 cup to 1/2 and I have omitted an ingredient, 1 tablespoon of liquid smoke, as it was redundant given the pork was smoked.

It might be nice to include it if you were to use this sauce as a pour over for grilled meats of chicken.

If you are hankering for something different this grilling season, I strongly recommend you give this sauce a try.

Let me know what you think

I always have.  Since I was a kid.  Maybe it resonates with my Jewish DNA somehow.

A few weeks back I had some time to think about the coming decent weather we are supposed to have here in Oregon, any day now, so they have been telling us since April.  As my patio has no cover, the summer months are prime smoking months.

So, the question before me was, what to smoke this summer.

My ribs are perfected.  I can hold my own on salmon.  My pulled pork gets raves.  The brisket still needs work, but it’s an ordeal in a water smoker.  So, I thought what else is there?

And then it hit me.

Pastrami!!!

A pastrami is just a smoked corned beef brisket, I can do this.

As with all new projects, it took a bit of research before i felt comfortable actually contemplating a cook.

OK, lets start with the basics.

A corned beef brisket is a beef brisket that has been corned or cured using a brine.  The brisket soaks in a salt solution flavored with Bay Leaf, Coriander, Black Pepper, Juniper Berries and Mustard Seed.  Sodium Nitrate is added to give the meat its distinctive pink color.

After it has soaked for a week to ten days, what you have now is a corned beef.

To turn this into a pastrami, one merely coats it with a pepper based rub and smokes it.  Now, commercially produced pastrami is cold smoked, that is, smoked at around 68 degrees.  However, during my research, I found several hot smoke recipes, so I condensed them down into a very basic process so that I could tweek it as I went.

I purchased a 3 pound commercial corned beef and the local grocery and rinsed it off and discarded the enclosed spice packet.  No need for it here.

Next, I placed it to soak in a pan of water for two hours.  This was to remove some of the salt that the meat had picked up when it was cured.

While i was waiting I prepared my rub.

There was a plethora of rub recipes to choose from so I decided that for the first time out, I would use the KISS principal.  All together, Keep It Simple Stupid.

I combined 3 tablespoons of black peppercorns, I teaspoon of whole coriander seeds , 1 teaspoon of whole mustard seed and 1 teaspoon of granulated garlic.  I ground it up in my trusty coffee grinder and once the meet was done soaking I covered it in the rub and it was off to the smoker.

Rubbed and Ready

I used hickory, most of the recipes called for lighter woods such as maple and alder, but it was what i had on hand so I decided to go for it.  I have been playing around with a new innovation that sadly I can not take credit for.  I have replaced the chip box in my smoker with a cast iron frying pan.  DUHHH!!!

Chip Pan 2.0

It holds the heat beautifully and can accommodate a full bag of soaked chips.  The down side is that it will take longer to start smoking but then it will last for 3 1/2 to four hours.  Just be sure to cover the pan with foil and poke three or four good sized holes in it.

Ready To Go

Once everything was ready it was off to the races.

Most of the experts agreed that the optimum temperature was in the 225-235 range, so that is what I used.

I was shooting for an internal temp of 160 degrees, but after four hours of smoking, my chips were exhausted and I had still only reached 140, so I decided to move my little science project to the oven.  It went into a 300 degree oven for another hour until I got to 160.

It looked great, but the truth is in the tasting.

Finished Product

To be honest, I was surprised.  It was pretty darned tasty.  The smoke flavor was very prominent without being overpowering.  There was a lot of heat from the pepper rub and there was noticeable saltiness from the brineing process.  I will have to wait and see what some of my official tasters have to say before I call this one a win.

I have all ready figured out a few tweeks for my next attempt.

1. They rub needs to be a ground a little coarser and I am going to increase the mustard and coriander to thin the pepper a bit.
2. If I am going to continue to use store bought corned beef, it is going to have to soak longer, I am thinking 4 hours.
3. As much as I love the hickory flavor, next time I am going to try two parts hickory to 1 part alder and 1 part cherry.

Stay tuned as I am going to stay at this until I get it right.

Can anyone reading this pass on a side of Bacon, a moist grilled pork chop, a marinated pork tenderloin.

No, I think just about everyone loves pork, or, as The National Pork Board would have us think of it, “The Other White Meat”

The problem is, The National Pork Board does not like unicorn meat, especially when it is marketed as “The New White Meat”.

As a matter of fact, their lawyers sent a cease and desist order to the owners of my favorite website, ThinkGeek.com, after, as an April Fools prank, the company offered canned unicorn meat for sale.  They do this every April 1st.

Now, anyone who has done business with them know they are famous for their prank products, like The Dharma Initiative Alarm Clock or Squeeze Bacon.  What is interesting is that some of their customer favorites go on to become real best selling products.

Not so in this case, just another prank product, just a laugh for the customers.

Well, no one was laughing when this letter arrived at ThinkGeek HQ.

Proof positive that lawyers have no freaking sense of humor.

Well, ThinkGeek has removed the offending ad and offered a ten dollar discount to any customer that took offense to their little prank.

“It was never our intention to cause a national crisis and misguide American citizens regarding the differences between the pig and the unicorn,” said Scott Kauffman, president and CEO of Geeknet. “In fact, ThinkGeek’s canned unicorn meat is sparkly, a bit red, and not approved by any government entity.”

It came on, as it always seems at first, out of the blue, and on reflection, as they always are, the warning signs were all there.

Thoughts of self harm, hopelessness , things slipping out of control.

Those closest to me, that really know me, must be thinking “What the hell is wrong with this guy, he is on top of the world, he finally got his shit together, got an incredible woman, what the hell does he have to be depressed about?”

Like an alcoholic who thinks he has beaten his disease, I failed to recognize one infallible truth, that I will be dealing with this for the rest of my life.  I thought, wrongly, that I had this thing beat, so, like our fictional addict, I stopped working my program, ignored the warning signs, and here I am again,  one step away from another visit to the happy house.

I had an incredible weekend.  Cooking as a housewarming present for some new friends,spending time with Mona, why should I acknowledge the fact that I was not eating right, not meditating, not sleeping, not managing my stresses both at work and at home, not exercising…not doing anything that would allow me to continue living this wonderful life that fate has handed me.

I ignored the thoughts of self harm, I must just be tired, after all, I would never do anything like that, right?

I allowed my personal affairs to slide into disarray, those dishes piling up, the laundry left undone, clothes not put away, I am just busy right?  I will catch up NEXT weekend, but next weekend never came, but hey, thats life.

Why should I worry about the emotional highs and lows that seemed to come at random, everyone has moods that change in a matter of moments, I am NORMAL dammit!

I mean, there I was, stressed to my very core that I was going to somehow ruin a meal I had made a hundred times, telling myself that even if they enjoyed it, they were only saying so to be polite, even though I know rationally that my BBQ rocks.

So I hear I sit, trying desperately to undo a months worth of harmful behavior, trying to decide if I need to go to the hospital after another night of tossing and turning.

I want to enjoy this life I have made for myself…I have everything I need, real friends who love me for who I am, not what I can do for them, a good job that, deep down, and don’t tell my boss this, that I enjoy and find challenging, and an incredible woman who is determined to see me through my darkest of days and who acknowledges that she can’t fix my problems, only support me while I fix them myself.

I want desperately to do right by all these people, but the only way to that is to do right by myself.

To those of you reading this who are new to my life, let me assure you, YOU did not cause this, YOU can not fix this, only I can.

To those of you who have been down this road with me before, well, here we go again.  I have had a real good example of what can happen when these type of issues are not dealt with and that is a road I refuse to travel.

With Bacon Betty doing her work thing yesterday, I was left to my own devices, which as any regular reader knows, often leads no where good.  Well, this time it did.

It lead me to Jimmy Johns Gourmet Sandwiches

I had seen this place up on Cedar Hills Blvd a few weeks ago and had made a mental note to try this new place I had seen driving by.

When I walked in, any thoughts that Jimmy Johns was some new indie shop flew right out the window.  he place screams chain.  I have an aversion to chain sandwich shops as you usually get too little for your hard earned dollars, but, I was there, my hungry spot was there, so why not.

The place was jumping, but it only took a few seconds to get too the register to place my order.  I have to apologize to the young woman who served me, because I did the worst thing a customer can do.

“I have never been here before, whats good?”

“The #9 is good.  I am not sure what is in it, but a lot of people order it and seen to like it.”

She had the harried, some what shell shocked look of some one who had been thrown into their job with very little training and you had to admire the honesty.

A quick peek at the menu board revealed that it might be a keeper.

It is billed as one of their Giant Club Sandwiches (double meat, double cheese) and had

Real genoa salami, Italian capicola, smoked ham, and provolone cheese all topped with lettuce, tomato, onion, mayo, and our homemade Italian vinaigrette. (You hav’ta order hot peppers, just ask!)

How bad can it be for $5.75?

If you have ever tried to get a sandwich at Subway during the lunch rush, you know you will wait at last 10-15 minutes, the three man crew working the prep station tossed me my order in under 5.

I took mine to go and headed home.

Judged solely on its looks, its a pretty impressive sandwich.  Judge it by taste and it only gets better.

The roll had just a hint of crunchiness at the crust that gives way to a soft interior.  The dressings were just right, I can’t stand a soggy sandwich, and the veggies were fresh and crisp.  The meets and cheese were well distributed and there was a little something of everything in each bite.

This my friends was a sandwich of substance.  Even with my appetite, by the time I finished it, I was FULL.  For those of you who eat like normal human beings, you might be better off with on of their 8″ subs, which price out at $4.75

Overall, I give Jimmy Johns high marks for quality and service, I cant comment on the dine in experience, and oh, did I mention they do delivery and accept on line orders too?

Next time you are up in the Cedar Hills neighborhood (they have another location in Portland on Broadway and 11th) and you are hungry for a sandwich, give Jimmy Johns a try, trust me, you will get more for your money then you will with a stripped down $5 Foot Long from the other guys.

Now, this guy had about four of them , obviously placed there for my education and amusement.

The first was for a Christian Radio Station.  No problem there, I will admit that I have enjoyed an occasional christian Rock tune, and there are some Christian metal bands that flat out Rock!

The next advised me to “Thank Your Mother For Choosing Life.”  Well, OK, for the moment we will ignore the obvious paradox presented and read on.

Next up was one telling me , in no uncertain terms, his stance on abortion.  Bright red, 4 inch letters proclaimed that my road partner was “Pro Mother; Pro Child, Pro Life”.

Then last, smaller then the rest, was a notice explaining “Freedom Isn’t Free…Thank A Serviceman”

While I thank him for the advice, and the props, your very welcome by the way, I really wanted to to follow this guy and ask a few questions.

Like, Isn’t a freedom of choice in reproductive health one of those freedoms that us servicemen paid for.

And, being such a supporter of the Armed Forces, are you really saying that it is OK to kill adults, but keep your hands off the fetus.

Buddy, I respect your right to voice an opinion, but do us all a favor, pick one stance and stick with it, will you.

I found this great book while wandering through Powell’s a few weeks back.  It is called “Walk There-50 Treks In and Around Portland and Vancouver”.  It is a guidebook for walking tours of Portland’s neighborhoods.  It is amazing how little of this city I have seen in my ten years here and now that I have a fantastic crime partner like Bacon Betty, it was high time I got out and saw some of what this city has to offer.

We decided to stick close to home for our first outing and explored Betty’s home town…Milwaukie.

Little did I know that besides being home to a geek Mecca, Dark Horse Comics, Milwaukie also offers something that I thought no longer existed in America.

Something that, for years, had shaped and molded our youth and then, like the Hula Hoop, disappeared from the American landscape.

I speak of course, of the Killer Play Structure.

Gaze with wonder upon this child killer we found in a Milwaukie Park.

Can’t you just see some little urchin reaching the top of this cabled peak, only to loose their balance and learn the amazing life lesson that getting to the top can mean a long painful fall to the bottom of the heap.  Where else can our youth find life lessons like this?

On a wimp ass, politically correct, injury free playhouse like this one that we found in the more upscale portion of Milwaukie?

I think not.

Kudos to this fair city for having the strength of character to not cave into the national obsession of bubble wrapping kids and keeping them from harms way.

How else of we supposed to winnow out the weak and potentially useless members of society before they grow old enough to attain political office?