Leftover #3:  Shredded Turkey over Rice with Green Beans (Recipe Included)

This is perhaps the simplest of all leftovers so far.  Start by shredding up some of the turkey, and while you are at it, go ahead and clean the whole carcass, saving all bones for stock-to-come.  Hopefully you have some leftover gravy.  If you do, put a big ladle of that in a skillet with 1 cup of water and the turkey pieces.  If you do not have gravy, make some.  Use cream of chicken soup, a gravy mix, or make it from scratch with a good old fashioned roux.  Let simmer until hot, stirring occasionally.  While that is heating, make your favorite rice.  We opted for white tonight.  When the rice is done, spoon onto a plate and top with turkey mixture.

Easy Green Beans -

Cook fresh or frozen green beans by steaming or boiling until tender as desired.  Drain off most of the water.  While still in hot pan, drizzle over 1 tbsp olive oil and 1 tbsp lemon juice (more or less to taste).  Top with a generous pinch of black pepper and Parmesan cheese.  You’ll never eat green beans any other way.

 Leftover #2: Sweet and Spicy Turkey on a Bun -

This gem of a sammy was born out of pure imagination.  It started with thick turkey slices over which I melted a slice of Muenster cheese.  I layered that on top of the bottom bun and a generous spread of cranberry jelly.  Then came some lettuce, purple cabbage, and sliced tomatoes.  I topped all of that with a spicy Texas barbecue sauce.  As a sandwich, it held it’s shape for about three bites, whereupon form gave way to flavor, and I resorted to eating it in pieces with my fingers.

After the family meal, we came home and fixed (a Texan word) another, even bigger, Thanksgiving meal.  We roasted a twenty pound turkey just for the two of us.  That’s right.  Twenty pounds of plump poultry eatin.  And just so he wouldn’t be lonely in the oven, I also made dressing, rolls, mashed potatoes from instant, a salad, and cookies.  Keep in mind that the kitchen is still in renovation; that’s why I made cookies instead of a pie.  Make sense?

Twenty pounds may seem a bit excessive for two people, but we love the leftovers almost more than the original meal.  So, while we’re obviously not in the Globetrotter, I will still chronicle the fate of those twenty pounds with a diary of leftovers.

 Leftover #1: Classic Leftover Thanksgiving Sandwich  - This is the day-after sandwich - there is still dressing, gravy, cranberry available.  It is the sandwich, if you watched the show “Friends”, known as “The Moist Maker” because of the layer of gravy-soaked dressing in the middle; the theft of which induced Ross’s uncontrollable rage. But I digress.  Here it is from the bottom on a toasted slice of whole-grain white, with a spoonful of gravy, slices of turkey, sliced cranberry jelly, a layer of dressing, a ladle of gravy, and another slice of toast on top.  It is a sandwich only in the broadest interpretation of the word.  It is neither portable nor handheld.  Shown here on a paper plate because I was tired of washing dishes, but you will notice the fork and knife in the background.

There were reports of a fantastically bright, kaleidoscopic blaze streaking across the night sky last week.  Speculations abounded as to the explanation.  Most lucid people associated it in some way with the scheduled landing of the Discovery.  Among those,  few could even guess what the brilliant blaze actually was.  Pilot Kevin Ford was doing we fellow travelers have to do on regular basis: dumping the tanks.

According to NASA, the urine dumps used to be made at the Space Station.  But, Japanese researchers have recently installed a research module that functions like a external patio to the station, a place to expose experiments to the space environment.   Dumps from a docked shuttle have the potential to pollute the experiments.

So, unaware of the entertainment value for  earthbound observers ,  Discovery opened up her tanks and let it flow, all 150 pounds of it.  The pee particles quickly turned to ice and then just as quickly melted off and somehow, through miracles of science unknown to me, this produced a burning trail of waste.

A job that few of us really want to do could be made so much more fun if it resulted in a beautiful show like that of the space shuttle Discovery.  Just imagine the aqua/pyrotechnics we could produce at a rally. Come ‘on Airstream!  When will the new models be able to freeze waste water “upon jettison into [clouds] of tiny ice droplets [so that] when the sun hits, the ice sublimates directly into water vapor,”  and creates a lightshow of urine?  How difficult could that custom upgrade be?

See pictures of the glowing teetee here.

If you’ve ever bought anything and had a question, needed to make resrvations and had a question, paid a bill, made a complaint, called for service, this post is for you.  The days are long gone when you could call into a help desk and speak to an operator.

Rich hinted at this if you read his entry a few weeks back: the aversion we (justly) have to the Automated Voice Response system.  The unlikelihood of ever talking to a real person if you need help with a service, product, reservation, or anything else.  Some enterprising and I’m sure really ticked off people have compiled lists of these hard-to-reach companies, the “secret code” required to get through to a person, and posted them all for our benefit.  No longer do you need to repeat “help. help. help.” or “agent.agent.agent.” over and over, each time feeling more and more idiotic.

Dial A Human!

Get Human Database

Bookmark these sites, or print out a glove-box copy to help preserve your sanity in the future.

A little story to illustrate the absurdities of language as used in marketing.  Let me start by going back a little.  Well, let me go back even further for the sake of geographic necessity.

A few years ago we took a long, three week trip in the Globetrotter.  We started here in Texas, wound through Arkansas, Tennessee, Virginia, Maryland, ending up in Pennsylvania, where we stayed for several days before making almost the same trip back home.  While we normally cook in the trailer in the evenings, we eat fast food more than we like to for lunch.  Usually we are trying to make some miles and fast food joints have big parking lots.  One time we planned ahead to have crackers, cold cuts, and cheese for lunch while driving.  This endeavor ended with me throwing a whole package of cheese out the window because, after trying for 10 minutes to open it with no knife in site, I had reached my limit and chucked it out the window.

What ‘Streamers know from driving around the country is that there are regional variations in fast food places.  As we were driving through Virginia, we discovered Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr.  I’m not sure why there is the name change, but they are basically the same place. We stopped at Hardee’s/Carl’s Jr more than we probably should have.  We really liked it, and it was not uncommon to order a slider – a little hamburger, meat and bread only, as a treat for our dogs.  At the time, they had a deal that was two of these burgers for $2.  Eric had even started to call Wendell, the black lab, “Carl Jr.” because of his habit of eating, if we let him, the burger in two big chomps.  One to secure the burger, and the next, with an up and back-toss of his head, to throw it down his throat.

Imagine our delight when we learned that they were opening a Carl’s Jr right here at home.   This was the first time I had ever seen Carl’s Jr in Texas.  Turns out they opened three in the central Texas area all at the same time.  We teased our dog, Wendell, that as soon as it opened, we’d get him a burger, since we knew it was his favorite.

After weeks of waiting, it finally opened, offering free food.  As we waited in line, they ran out of food.  The next time we went back it was still too packed – the line snaked out the door.  I guess us Texans get WAY excited over a new burger joint, because there was never less than 8 cars in the drive through.  We finally made inside the restaurant a couple of weeks later, with Wendell waiting patiently  sleeping in the car.  The menu had changed and was all complicated (mostly pictures of combo meals and no individual items), but we ordered, waited, and ate.  Then I went back to the counter to order Wendell his coveted burger.  This is where it gets fun.

They, of course, did not have that slider deal anymore, nor did they have any kind of children’s menu or plain burger on their menu.  This is the exchange I had when I went to order:

Me: Do you have a kid’s meal?
Order Taker: Yeah, we have chicken strips or a cheeseburger meal.
Me: Well, can I just get the burger off that kids’ meal?
OT: You don’t want the meal?
ME: Nope, just the burger.
OT: (blank look) …uuuhhh
[Order Taker #2 steps in.]
Me: Do you have just a plain, little burger?
OT2:  Well, you can get the Big Hamburger.
Me: Well, I just wanted a little hamburger.
OT2: The big hamburger’s little.
Me: Alright, let me have the Big Hamburger, meat and bread only, as long as it’s little.
OT2: Do you want that as a combo meal?
. . . .
A few minutes later, I brought the bag with the little, Big Hamburger back to the table.
Eric: Did you get a little burger?
Me: I got the Big Hamburger, but it’s little.
Eric: What..
Me: Don’t ask.

A few minutes later, Wendell got his burger.  I think he was as disappointed in it as I was.  But he doesn’t complain.  much.

Bonus points for anyone who noticed, at first glance, the Airstream in the picture.

There I was, minding my own business, hurting no one, when my husband called me into the other room to see something on tv, the fright of which would give me nightmares, send my pulse racing, the images of it burned into my subconscious.  What was this horrible thing?  It was the scene from the 1953 classic, The Long Long Trailer, in which “Nicki” and “Tacy” are driving up the side of a one lane mountain road.  Up and up and up, around the curve, rocks sliding down the drop-off, when they encounter a car driven by Norman Leavitt, and they have to inch along the road, scraping the side of the car, which has pulled up against the embankment on the ’safe’ side.  All the while I’m yelling at the tv, “no, don’t stop don’t stop, you won’t be able to make it.”    But then that big ol 8 cylinder Oldsmobile mangages to regain some gusto and chugs back up the hill.  And then they make a curve too tight, and Nicky has to back up, and the end of the trailer dangles over the cliff, and then the wheel spins in dry sand, but then he pulls out, and then…wait - I gotta slow down and catch my breath.

 O.K. and then he scrapes the side of the enbankment, has to back up again, dangles over the edge, and then finally straightens up and drives free of the cliff.  Up a few more inclines, and then they arrive at their destination.  I’m not sure where, because I had to  turn it off.  It had been too traumatic.

You see, I’m already afraid of heights and steep inclines.  I will generally exit and take the long way around rather than drive up one of those soaring “fly-overs” which could, probably, launch someone into orbit if hit at the right velocity.  But I digress.  That fear, combined with the idea of pulling a beloved old trailer up that dirt road, and the peril of plunging off a cliff was too much.  I didn’t like it at all, and I LOVE Lucy.

Was it supposed to be a comedy?  Because it’s not funny. Forget Saw 2, or Amityville.  Heck, forget The Shining, which is, unarguably the scariest movie ever.  This Ricky and Lucy “classic” affected me in a way tha none of these so called horror/thriller flicks ever did.

I’ve managed to put it behind me, though, for the most part.  I try to remind myself that it’s not real.  My therapist taught me some breathing exercises.  But sometimes, late at night, the thoughts come back and I see the trailer hanging off the cliff, and I start to shudder.  Oh, and I also remind myself not to fill our trailer with souvenir boulders from all the places we’ve been to.

(I have to apologize in advance for not having photos for this, but my props were eaten before I even had enough time to get out the camera.)

Brats are a food that people feel passionately about.  It is a topic deeply embedded in never-ending controversy,  basically centering on this question: do you boil first then grill, or grill then bathe in the beer.  I will attest to the boil then grill method, but I don’t think you will be disappointed by the other.  Try them both and see which you prefer.

The whole beer brat thing in our house started with a conversation my husband had in the grocery store.  I had lost sight of him down one of the aisles, but continued to shop.  Later I realized it had been a while.  Worried that he had gotten lost, I headed back to look for him, only to find him in an intense discussion with a complete stranger that went something like this:

E: What kind of beer do you use?
Stranger:  Shiner.  You have to use Shiner.
E: Nothing else?
Stranger: Only Shiner.
E: Are you buying the Johnsonville?
Stranger: No, I think I’m buying …….

They were deep in conversation like two women discussing how to make a Sunday pot roast.  At this point I had pretty much stopped listening, but in hindsight, I should have paid more attention.  Eric made the best sausage, excuse me, brats, that night, and it took forever to get the recipe out of him.  They were juicy and perfectly browned, but not greasy.  Only after researching it myself and presenting him with a recipe I had found, would he tell me that mine was totally wrong and this was how he did it.  So here they are, both recipes, and I do think Eric’s is the best.

Beer Brats

1 6-pack Shiner Bock
Brats, Bratwursts, or other sausage (but brats taste much better than any other sausage)

optional: buns, mustard, sauerkraut, plates,

Empty 3 bottles of beer into a large pan, add the brats and heat on medium high until boiling.  Turn heat down slightly and simmer or low boil for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile make sure the grill is hot.  After you have drunk the other three beers, or the 10 minutes is up, whichever comes first, remove the brats from the pan using tongs.  Transfer to hot grill and grill until golden brown.

Note: One time we didn’t have any Shiner, so he tried using something else – I think it was a Modelo – and it was not nearly as tasty.

Grill-first Method

This method is good if you don’t want to spend anytime at the stove or have guests straggling in at any given time.

1 6-pack Shiner Bock
Johnsonville Brats
aluminum baking dish (the disposable kid)

optional: sliced onions, buns, mustard, plates

Put the pan right on the grill.  Pour in the beer and sliced onions if you are using them.

Grill the brats.  When the brats are done, transfer them to the beer ‘hot tub’ where they can relax and soak up the beer until someone pulls them out.

Lagniappe: Ensure that you have enough brats for leftovers.  The next morning, dice them up and scramble them into eggs with some onions and bell peppers.

Biscotti are quite possibly my favorite cookie to bake.  If I’m cooking for myself, a simple chocolate chip or plain oatmeal cookie will suffice, but biscotti is the number one choice for socializing.

I nearly always bake some biscotti to tuck away into the Airstream before a trip.  They can be packed up in tins, Tupperware, or even a Zip-Loc bag and still remain, for the most part, whole and intact.  The absolute best thing about biscotti, though, is their versatility.  Depending on your guests or your mood, biscotti will go with almost anything.  They are the perfect dipping cookie.  And, because of their subtle, elemental flavors, and subtle sweetness, they can go into just about anything.  It is perfectly acceptable to dunk biscotti in coffee, tea, milk, and even wine.  Yea, cookies that go with wine!!  Even Oreos can’t make that claim.
For the unfamiliar, biscotti are a twice-baked, oblong-shaped cookie from Italy. Biscottio, means twice cooked, and comes from the custom of baking cookie dough in long slabs, cutting it into thick, long cookies, and baking them again. After the second bake, they lose any excess moisture, making them nice and crunchy, and sturdy enough to travel or be shipped. Biscotti are in the same cookie family as Mandelbrot, the traditional Jewish cookie made with oilgt. Mandelbrot is typically filled with walnuts or almonds and flavored with a bit of cinnamon. Biscotti will call for hazelnuts or almonds, and is crispier than mandelbrot due to its second baking.

There are hundred of recipes for biscotti throughout Italy, but other than flavoring (biscotti can also be subtly-sweet or savory) they fall into two distinct categories: those made with butter and those made without butter or any shortening. The cookies made with butter have a more tender shortbread-like texture, while those without are drier, harder, and crunchier.  Recipe follows:

Double Chocolate Biscotti
adapted from Biscotti by Lou Seibert Pappas, Chronicle Books, 1992

2/3 c sliced or slivered almonds
½ c butter
¾ c sugar
2 eggs
2 tbsp Amaretto, Kahlua, or double-strength coffee
2 c plus 2 tbsp flour
1/3 c unsweetened cocoa
1 ½ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
2/3 c semi-sweet chocolate chips

Place nuts in a shallow pan and toast over medium heat for about 10 minutes, or until you start to smell them.  Keep stirring to prevent any hotspots.  Let cool.

In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Beat in eggs and liqueur or coffee.  In a bowl combine the flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt.  Using a sturdy spoon, add the creamed sugar, and mix until thoroughly blended.  Fold in nuts and chocolate chips.

Divide dough in half.  On a baking sheet that has been lined with parchment paper, pat out dough into two logs about ½ inch high, 1 ½ inches wide, and 14 inches long, spacing them at least 2 inches apart.  Bake in the middle of a preheated 325° oven for 25 minutes.  Remove from the oven.  Gently lifting the parchment paper, transfer the logs onto a cooling rack.  Let cool for 5 to 10 minutes.  Place on a cutting board.  With a serrated knife, or even better, an electric knife, slice diagonally on a 45 degree angle about ½ inch thick.  Place the slices upright back on the baking sheet and return to the oven for 8 to 10 minutes.  Let cool on a rack.  Store in a tightly covered container.

P.S.  While cutting the biscotti, you are likely to create a lot of crumbs.  If you can resist the urge to lick them off the cutting board, save them in a Zip-Loc and store in the freezer.  Use them to crumble on ice cream, top off some tiramisu, or sprinkle over oatmeal.

The Austin City Limits Music Festival is a three day event, a spinoff of the  famous Austin City Limits television show produced by UT and KLRU, the public television station in Austin.  It is a huge music venue, bringing in famous and up-and-coming bands on several stages constructed around Zilker Park.  It also brings in thousands of music lovers, and a good time is had by all.

Since our favorite urban trailer park is but a several blocks down from the main entrance gate, it is a great place to people watch, and another great excuse to take out the Globetrotter.

This year, we met some new Airstream friends, our neighbors, April and Chris Childs and their daughter Bennett.  They restored their trailer themselves (see above), and can be found out on the road here in Austin, and at Burning Man.

Because we didn’t actually go to the festival, the weekend was quite restful.  We slept late, read, cooked, napped, and ventured out between 10 and 11 pm to witness the street antics as the shows let out.

When was the last time you can say you were part of an impromptu street dance party?

That’s what I thought.  The hijinx continued until the cops cleared the streets at about 11 and everyone drifted off into the night.

But they were back, at 9am the next morning, heading in to another round of shows.