Friday, November 4, 2011

A Man and his Meat

Here is the Doogie Howser style ending to my day. I will leave out the driving and the rain and focus on the food.

Tuesday there was a great sale on meat at the California version of Safeway (Von's). This is me with my proud purchase:

I believe the camera somehow managed to remove my lips. Either that or there is so much meat in this one picture that the gravitational pull from all that awesome protein created a gravity well that proved too strong for my lips and they were sucked into the red, meaty black hole.

I was so excited to find a roast on sale, over half off! I've been looking forward to today's meaty feast. This morning I dropped some baby carrots and bay leaves along with potatoes and garlic and half an onion into my awesome, MANLY crock pot. I got it for free a couple years ago from the job where I used to pick up dead people. It's not a long story, I just don't want to tell it right now.

If you have a hard time finding where the crock pot is, I'll tell you right now that it's camoflaged.

I added half a bottle of wine, some hooch (good stuff) a can of cream of mushroom soup, and then I questioned myself and added way too much water, thus the little cup of brown "crock juice" to the right of the cooker to prevent it from boiling over...which it seemed determined to do no matter what I wanted.

I then had to leave the apartment for a few hours handing the reigns over to my apart-mate Luke. Aparently it began to bil over so he turned it to low heat before leaving for a movie...though he later discovered he turned it off, so when I got home I was justly saddened to find the meat not so much flaky as uncooked. I turned it back to high at 8pm and lurked around the cooker for most of the evening. Finally at 11pm I turned the slow cooker off and a wave of sadness crept over me. I should have been happy to finally be able to dig in to a load of meat that had spent most of the day simmering in it's own juices, but I felt like I had a loss since it did not happen when and how I had hoped it would for so many days. That's my strength and weakness all wrapped into one: perfection. I had an ideal and did not meet it. I told myself to forget it and I dug into it with my apart-mate, who had tried to cook some brownies for the occassion...but apparently overcooked them. It was still flavorful, except for the edge.

The good news-the pot roast was flaky and delicious and I am going to bed with a full stomach and the aftertaste of delicious meaty success on my lips.


(What success looks like from above)

(What success looks like from the side)

1 comment:

  1. bro!!!
    always cook on low for 6-8 hrs minimum w/ a roast...it will come out fall apart yummy!! so sorry your meaty lovelyness was delayed...part of experimenting with the roomate/cooking sharing!! love you!!
    laurie

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