Its so safe floating in the glass

While above all your troubles pass.

Worked from home today on some programming issues for some clients, so I figured what better then to make a cake. Well sort of. Let me explain.

In my family anything and everything dessert pretty much revolves around the Italian pastry Baba rum cakes. Over the years “Baba” has pretty much become an adjective for any dessert of any kind. Often my father would reply in regards to someone asking about what was for dinner,  “To hell with dinner do we even have any Baba?” Roughly translated to who cares about dinner do we have dessert?

What does this have to do with what I am about to show and tell today? Nothing, other then I found myself in the kitchen this morning wondering about what I was going to eat for dinner. I caught myself thinking to hell with dinner, what do I have for dessert or more accurately “shit I have no Baba!”

I have become my father.

Now some people may not want to admit to becoming one of their parents. I think we all start out this way. Maybe some people have bad parents and truly never want to become what they are or were, but I think some genetic material is going to flow through and good or bad you’re going to display some of the same traits as your parents.

I am not too worried about it. My father was tough on me and my brothers growing up, and certainly not perfect. He showed us it was ok to make mistakes or wrong decisions, but you stand up and take it like a man and move on. So becoming like my father isn’t so bad, I could do a hell of a lot worse.

Folks, I made some “Baba” as it were. Oreo Cake.

I found this recipe on Serious Eats by a rather neat woman named Yvonne Ruperti. I had everything on hand and it was easy. You need a couple hours start to finish between cooking, cooling, and then chilling it down but I am convinced if you can follow the simplest instructions or say crop dust the sales department in the cube farm without ruining your shorts you can make this cake.

I stayed true to the recipe (provided in the recipe section) as published and what you see here is the end result. This is nothing more then a simple chocolate cake, crushed up Oreo cookies, and whipped cream.

Now I have some Baba for tonight. What I am eating for dinner is still a damn mystery. As I think about it, screw it. This is dinner. Diabetic shock and comma here I come.

 

Oreo Cake

Recipe posted by Yvonne Ruperti via Serious Eats.

Ingredients for the cake:

  • 3/4 cup all purpose flour
  • 1/4 cup cocoa powder
  • 1/2 plus 1/8 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/8 teaspoon of salt
  • 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
  • 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons sour cream
  • 1/3 cup vegetable oil
  • 1 large egg
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Coat a nine (9) inch cake pan with non-stick spray. Sift flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt into bowl, set aside. In another bowl or bowl of stand mixer whisk together the sugar, sour cream, oil, egg, and vanilla extract until smooth.

Now whisk in the flour and cocoa mixture  to the wet ingredients in step above until smooth. Pour this batter into the cake pan you sprayed with the non-stick above. Cook in oven for 25-30 minutes until a tooth pick inserted into middle of cake comes out clean. Cool cake in pan 15 minutes, then turn out and cool cake on wire rack for about an hour or until its room temp.

Cut six (6) Oreo cookies in half and set aside. Be careful and watch your fingers, ask me how I know! Then take the rest of the Oreo cookies from the package and chop them up to  something like 1/4 inch chunks. I said to hell with that and put them in the food processor and pulled the trigger about a dozen times for a second or two each time. You wind up with a course Oreo crumbly mixture. Resist urge to shove face in bowl and inhale like Tony Montana in Scarface. Set these Oreo crumbs aside.

Ingredients for Oreo whipped cream:

  • 50 Oreo cookies. I just used a complete package of regular Oreo cookies. Who has time to count?
  • I quart of heavy cream.
  • 2 tablespoons of granulated sugar
  • I tablespoon of vanilla extract

Make the whipped cream in two (2) batches. Pour half the quart into a bowl and with a blender or a stand mixer with the wire whip, whip the cream until light peaks form. Scoop this first batch of whipped cream into a large bowl and put in fridge.

Make second batch of whipped cream with second half of quart of heavy cream. This time add the sugar and vanilla extract and whip to soft peaks again. Now add this batch of whipped cream to the fist batch of whipped cream sitting in the fridge. Fold and mix the two batches together. You should now have a full quart of heavy cream turned into whipped cream in a big old bowl.

Now of all that whipped cream, take and spoon out about a cup of it and put in the fridge.

Take all those crushed up Oreo cookies you didn’t try and snort like Scarface, and pour into the whipped cream. Fold it all together and mix well.

Take your cooled off chocolate cake sitting on your wire rack. Cut it in half with a long knife horizontally.  Put the bottom slice of cake on your serving plate. Scoop out about 1/3 to almost a 1/2 of the Oreo whipped cream mixture onto the first cake layer. Spread it out on that first layer. It will be about an inch or two thick.

Place second layer of the split cake on top of this whipped cream layer. Scoop the rest of the Oreo whipped cream mixture onto this second cake layer. Spread it out all over the top and sides of cake. Make neat, take your time. Its easy. Honest

Now you’re almost there. Put the cake in the fridge for a couple hours. It will chill and the cookies in the whipped cream will soften up a bit and the whipped cream with stiffen up a bit.

Last step.

Get that last cup of plain non-Oreo whipped cream that you set aside and put in fridge. You want to pipe this whipped cream out with a pastry bag into rosettes (12) of them around the perimeter of the chilled cake. I know I know. Who the hell besides foodie maniacs or baking enthusiasts has a piping bag? In that case, just scoop the whipped cream into a zip lock bag. Cut the corner off the bag and waa-laa you have a pipping bag on the cheap. Pipe 12 little puffs of whipped cream around the top of the cakes edge and then take a piece of the six Oreos you cut in half and place a piece on each little whipped cream puff, or rosette if you had a pipping bag and correct tip.

Look at your masterpiece! Told you it was easy.

The waiting drove me mad, You’re finally here and I’m a mess

I take your entrance back. Can’t let you roam inside my head.

Eleventh anniversary of the terrorist attacks today. So by now the entire internet and news media have discussed the significance of todays date. Everyone has posted “where they were” when the news hit. Everyone has discussed the heroes of that day.

I did in fact think about todays date eleven years ago. You know what I thought about? An old girlfriend I was involved with back then. Yes I thought about the terrorists attacks and that horrible day, but I also thought about lost love and to happier times in that regard. Contextually speaking of course.

I was out driving around with my father today and as we passed a car dealership with its typical four thousand square foot flag at half mast, I asked “who the hell died now?” He replied that it was for 9/11/01 and it hit me.

A good friend of mine recently pontificated and I am going by memory here, that he was sick of how every little burp or fart in this country and the flags go to half mast. Lowering flags to half mast are reserved for only national mourning or distress, deaths of significant heads of state and ordered by the President or a State Governor.

Dont get me wrong 9/11/01 is a national day of mourning. Although I have to ask and wonder about the significance eleven years later.

When do we as a country say “F-You” terrorists! We as a nation have mourned our loss, we hunted and killed your gutless leader like a pig. We mourn no more. Not for terrorists outside the country and certainly not for some sick kid in Colorado who couldnt make friends and get laid from time to time. Not for some firefighter who falls off a ladder during training, not for some cop getting ran over blocking traffic in an intersection.

We are the people of the greatest nation in the world represented by a single flag. Stop screwing with it and lowering it every time some jerk gets out of the wrong side of bed or someone doing an inherently dangerous job willingly, unfortunately dies while performing those duties.

Shit happens. We know when to mourn and take care of each other. We don’t need to compromise the collective strength, dignity, and greatness of our entire country by constantly easing that strength, dignity, and greatness of our one and only symbolic representation.

Unless its World War III, the death of a President, or Jenna Jameson fly that damn flag high and proud for the world to see. We can still mourn and support each other if the needs arise.

Yes I remember where I was eleven years ago today. I was greatly saddened by the brazen attacks on our home soil and the needless loss of life. I was also planning a weekend getaway trip to Key West and in love. Guess which event over the years since 9/11/01 I think back to more and more as each year passes.

 

I saw a werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand

Lots of adjectives to describe this weekend. None more then melancholy that its over, but probably the two that most come to mind as I sit back and think about the weekend are interesting and grateful.

I’ll start with the interesting. Yesterday it seems that the President was in town, glad handing and drumming up support for his attempt at re-election. This wouldn’t be out of the ordinary except that yesterday as he was making his way from Melbourne to West Palm Beach he was was stopping at seemingly random businesses to speak with patrons and establishment owners. One of his stops was about a mile as the crow flies from my home to some local restaurant bar. The police activity, secret service convoy, Obama’s motorcade, helicopters is a sight to see, once you get over the fact its a complete damned catastrophe waiting to happen. Traffic is stopped in all directions within a mile of wherever the President decides to jump out for his photo opportunity. Its interesting to see the logistics to move this guy around and at what costs to the communities and people around him to do it. Yesterday during his movement one of the poor bastard motorcycle police whom was attempting to “Stop” traffic on interstate 95 (yes you read that right, stop traffic on Interstate 95) was creamed by a pickup truck and subsequently DRT. (Dead Right There) President Obama’s  thoughts are with his family of course!

What else is interesting to me is how and at what establishments the President decides to randomly stop in and visit. The news and White House would have you believe that the President while traveling through the region to kill some time just decides to pull off the road here and there all willy nilly to shake hands and kiss babies. I call bullshit on that every day till Sunday. Secret service knows all about these stops well in advance. Secret service even calls the establishments owners forty minutes prior and announce that the President will be stopping in. This is all logical and fine.

To me this tells you a little about the establishment the President is visiting. Do you think the President, during his most crucial re-election campaign, would just stop in to visit a business owner who is a through and through republican? Or maybe a business owner whom is trying to figure out how in the hell he/she is going to afford to pay for mandatory healthcare with all the bells and whistles under Obamacare and remain in business? No, this tells me one thing. The particular places President Obama decides to stop in and visit, are staunch supporters of his. I’ll even go so far as to say, I’d bet a million internet bucks that these business owners have made $$$ contributions to Mr. Obama’s re-election campaign. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think there is anything wrong with that being the case, it just for me it shines these businesses in a different light. It could be argued that this President is the most polarizing President we as a nation have had in a very long time. There are those that say, President Obama will clearly unseat former President Jimmy Carter as the worst President the nation has had in modern times. I tend to agree personally which is why I don’t see how some of these local business can support such a threat to simple free market enterprise as this President.

Lastly in the interesting department it was posed to me in conversation, what would I have done if I was a local business owner and President Obama just showed up. It’s a good question to ponder. I maintain that President Obama wouldn’t just show up to my business, his intel and recon would know that I am not a democrat, nor a supporter of his. However if  he did come into my establishment how would I react to him? I wouldn’t turn him away, he is the President for Christ’s sake. As a Marine, he’s the commander in chief. Good or bad he’ll get his due respect the office in which he holds deserves from me. All things being equal, he wouldn’t be getting much of a photo opportunity with me and if given the chance, respectfully told nor my vote.

Enough interesting, lets discuss grateful.

I was also grateful this weekend. I got a chance to get breakfast / lunch with some friends Saturday. We hung for a few hours discussing such important topics as fishing, motorcycles, food, the annual Christmas party, and how and when to fly in fresh crawdads from Louisiana this spring for a serious boil.

I am grateful because these friends as are most of mine, are on the board of directors of this internet content conglomerate that is What’s up Brock. While this blog is still young and in its infancy, it helps me to get feedback and direction from folks who are regularly reading what I am typing. So far everything is positive and the general consensus is to keep going, give them more more more. Not a problem there at all. I got some ideas for content and spreading the sickness to the masses. I am excited to see where this goes. So far as I stated earlier the response has been overwhelmingly positive. I haven’t even gotten to the hunting and killing or tools and horsepower yet. Furthermore you know I haven’t reached the end of the internet toilet flush of having a lack of content or ideas yet because we all know that ace in the hole is tits and porn. I am a long way from playing that card. I hope. Not that I would. Well tits and porn are ok. Wait, I am supposed to be making and thinking about what kind of brand I am creating here. I want all people to read and enjoy this site. Thongs, panties, (shut up devil).

Lets close this up before my head explodes.

Be good to each other. We get back what we give out and if you cant be with the one you love, then love the one you’re with.

Come here Lucas!

 

Pork Fried Rice.

Ingredients:

  • 10-12oz of cooked pork (ribs, roast, pork chops whatever)
  • 1 green bell pepper
  • 1 yellow onion
  • 1 small habanero pepper
  • 3 small stalks of celery
  • 1 cup shredded lettuce
  • 2 eggs beaten
  • 4 cups cooked rice
  • 2 tablespoons garlic powder
  • 2-4 tablespoons soy sauce
  • 2-4 tablespoons Sriracha chili Sauce
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  • Vegetable oil
  • A pinch of just pure personally you can do anything awesomeness.

I chopped up some pork, and then diced up some onion, bell pepper, lettuce, celery, a habanero, a couple beaten eggs and broke out the wok. Some soy sauce, a load or two of Sriracha chili sauce, garlic power, salt, pepper and you pretty much have the ingredients for greatness.

Onions, bell pepper, habanero, celery, meat into a hot wok with some oil. Stir, shake, stir, shake repeat until translucent and soft.

Add in your seasoning, chili sauce, soy sauce, and continue to cook and let liquid evaporate off.

Another good shot of oil then stir, shake, stir, shake repeat.

Spoon/shovel all the vegetables and meat up the sides of the wok leaving the hot center bare. Should have enough oil here if not hit it with a teaspoon or two more. Pour in beaten eggs and scramble eggs in center of wok.

Eggs scrambled, meat heated, vegetables nice and sautéed, dump in four cups of cooked rice.

Stir, shake, stir, shake, repeat. Add a couple tablespoons of soy sauce. Stir, shake, stir, shake, repeat.

Dump in lettuce. Stir, shake, stir, shake, repeat until lettuce just begins to wilt. Remove wok from heat, bowl up some of that greatness and enjoy.

Pork fried rice, kicked up a notch with the chili sauce.

 

What we have here, little yellow sister, is a magnificent specimen of…


..pure Alabama Blacksnake? Ah…No, but what I do have isn’t too goddamned beaucoup either. What I have here is some mondo, bad assed, kiss your mother with that mouth, sit down, slam the table, I shit you not, homemade pork fried rice.


You may recall that this past weekend for dinner club meet up numero deuce, I made a BBQ pork roast for my guests. Well after eating pork left overs the rest of the week it was time for a reboot. I chopped up the remaining pork, and then diced up some onion, bell pepper, lettuce, celery, a habanero, a couple beaten eggs and broke out the wok. Some soy sauce, a load or two of Sriracha chili sauce, garlic power, salt, pepper and you pretty much have the ingredients for greatness.

Onions, bell pepper, habanero, celery, meat into a hot wok with some oil. Stir, shake, stir, shake repeat until translucent and soft.

Add in your seasoning, chili sauce, soy sauce, and continue to cook and let liquid evaporate off.

Another good shot of oil then stir, shake, stir, shake repeat.

Spoon/shovel all the vegetables and meat up the sides of the wok leaving the hot center bare. Should have enough oil here if not hit it with a teaspoon or two more. Pour in beaten eggs and scramble eggs in center of wok.

Eggs scrambled, meat heated, vegetables nice and sautéed, dump in four cups of cooked rice.

Stir, shake, stir, shake, repeat. Add a couple tablespoons of soy sauce. Stir, shake, stir, shake, repeat.

Dump in lettuce. Stir, shake, stir, shake, repeat until lettuce just begins to wilt. Remove wok from heat, bowl up some of that greatness and enjoy. Pork fried rice, kicked up a notch with the chili sauce and you didn’t have to hit the greasy chinese motor kitchen behind the McDonalds in the strip mall. Yes President Obama I MADE THIS!

Brock you are truly a renaissance man. Your greatness knows no bounds. You are the Pater Familia of awesome, but what in the hell does your blog title have to do with pork fried rice? Well you see pork fried rice is a common food in more then one far east culture and when I think of far east culture the first thing that popped into my mind was the scene in Full Metal Jacket where Private Eightball was negotiating with the Vietnamese hooker for some boom boom in the middle of the battle of Hue City.

A little strange and twisted look into your favorite bloggers head? Sure you might say that. Look at it this way though, my pork fried rice didn’t remind me of Private Handjob jerking off ten times a day and getting greased before his section 8 papers cleared division from the same movie. That would be just silly and disgusting.

Rated G version of recipe can be found over in the recipe section of the blog for you rather weak of heart and mind.

For the rest of you…

…..son, all I’ve ever asked of my Marines is that they obey my orders as they would the word of God. We are here to help the Vietnamese, because inside every gook there is an American trying to get out. It’s a hardball world, son. We’ve gotta keep our heads until this peace craze blows over. 

Some People Like to Gamble

But you always lose
Some people like to rock and roll
But you’re always singing the blues. 

If you have been following the news at all in the last few weeks then you may have heard that one of the Navy Seals that was on the operation to capture or kill Osama Bin Laden, under a pen name wrote and published a book on his experiences. Normally this wouldn’t be an issue but there has been some gripe in the fact that the Seal community is a tight knit as well as a very tight lipped organization. When books are written by Seals or any other ranking or special forces military individuals, there is a certain protocol to be followed  in that the publishers will supply a copy of the books/manuscripts to the pentagon to be scrutinized for any potential classified information and other facets of operational security breeches.

In this case the book was never shown to the pentagon as it were, but the author and publisher are stating that in fact they ran portions by the pentagon or other such authority and was given clearance for publication and sale.

Personally, President Obama used the mission and subsequent death of Bin Laden as political capital and with that I applaud the Navy Seal that wrote the book to get the story and truth told. Now with that being said, I can tell you there wont be anything in the book that will be shocking. There wont be classified information. At best for this one particular operation there may be detailed examples how the Seals may have prepared and trained for the mission on down to the tactics used during the operation. So the only thread the Pentagon is holding onto is that the book may somehow explain how the Seals operate from a tactical standpoint and that the book may compromise future missions and or operations for the Seals.

When I was over seas in the Marine Corps in the early 90’s I shared some  living space with a couple Navy Seals when we were on ship. They were a couple of cool fellas. I couldn’t tell you their names if I wanted to because I can’t remember them. As I think back about it I doubt they ever mentioned them past radio call signs. It was interesting times back then. There was only three or four Seals on the ship that I was on. They spread the Seals out on all the ships in the force which at the time may have been 6-8 including a sub, destroyers, and aircraft carrier. Being in the Marines I never even saw the aircraft carrier or destroyers that were in our group. I heard the sub ping our ship one time in training but thats a story for another time.

As you can probably guess being in the military especially the Marines everything is uniform this regulation that. Always neat, clean uniformity hurry up and wait. The Seals lived by another rule of the land. You’d think they were a couple of college dropouts that were taking the summer following the Grateful Dead selling hippies burritos out of the back of a VW bus. I was on ship with these guys for the better part of eight months, I do not think I every saw them in anything but shorts and a teeshirt. Hair was anything but military regulation, beards, mustaches you name it.

The Seals were in great shape. When on ship and you’re not in the Navy, meaning you’re a Marine, Seal, some other special ops or military catching a ride, there pretty much is nothing to do but work out and check and recheck (you read that as clean) your gear, weapons, vehicles. Some times I would work out with the Seals and it always amazed me how long and hard these maniacs could just keep going. Its tough training to become a Seal, but if you pass it and get in you can pretty much run iron man contests seven days a week.

At the time I was on this ship I was also with a Marine who was a plumber for the engineer battalion I was attached to. On ship just to pass the time this Marine would help the Navy that ran the boat work on stopped up drains and toilets. This Marine was hardcore as anyone I met. Hardcore and semi retarded I do believe. This one time on ship the head (bathroom) in the berthing area (living space) next to ours was all plugged up and there was about eight inches of water sloshing around in there. When I say water I mean pretty much liquid raw sewage. Now when I walked by this catastrophe my buddy was standing in the sewage in his skivvies (underwear) with nothing else on except his dress blues barracks cover. (famous white and black Marine Corps hat worn in dress uniform) An unlit cigar hanging out of his mouth and he was running this big industrial sewer snake down this drain line. He looks over at me and with a straight face, “Shitters Full!!” I swear to god it was right out of Christmas Vacation with uncle Eddy flushing his chemical toilet down the storm drain. Except this Marine never saw the movie Christmas Vacation. The story doesn’t end there. No sir. Lcpl Brown (name changed to protect innocent and stupid) was never one to not accept a challenge. So I told him for a free round of beer when we get to port taste the water sloshing around at his feet. He looks at me like I was some third rate Busch League amateur in life’s game of “bet you won’t”. Takes a canteen cup (metal cup issued with canteen to drink, shave, heat food) dips in the water at his feet and drinks about a pint. (where i knew he was semi retarded) between gagging and laughing Lcpl Brown says to me, “damn, all you Marines and your workout supplements, some serious iron and amino acids in that sewage.”

So now reader you know a little about real Seals and real Marines.

Fast forward a couple months. The ship pulls into Rota, Spain. Its basically a Naval station in the west coast of Spain that the Navy stops in on the way to Mediterranean and on the way home from the Med. to refuel resupply and wash everything down. We had this shed on the ship that we would crane down to the pier and fill it full of beer. We would drink around this shed at night on the pier next to the ship when work was done for the day.

Lcpl Brown and I were having a few beers, on my tab of course. The two Navy Seals that were on the ship joined us. Two beers probably turned into a case or more between the four of us. Stories were told about how screwed up some of the operations we were on turned out. There were some stray feral cats on the pier. One of the Navy Seals, clearly shit faced by this time makes the statement on how he can do anything in the world but his distaste for cats especially feral cats knew no bounds. Lcpl Brown being semi retarded says nonchalantly “you’re a big bad Seal kill it”. This Seal looks at Brown with a look like you’re retarded jarhead but then leaves. Conversation continues. Later on the Seal comes back looks at Lcpl Brown and drops what I think is a cats eyeball into the beer stein in front of Lcpl Brown. Seal says something snarky like “Do you know what I do for a living?” the Seals have straight faces, Lcpl Brown and I have straight faces, I am thinking well were going to fight, but at least I can say we fought a couple of Seals. Lcpl Brown looks at his beer stein looks at the Seal and then looks at me. Takes the beer stein with eyeball and drinks it, flashes the eyeball in his teeth at the Seal, sucks it down and swallows it. Laughs at the Seal and calls him a bitch. The Seals start laughing hysterically and tells Lcpl Brown how it wasn’t the cats eye it was from a dead fish floating in the water around the pier. Lcpl Brown looks at the Seals and says, “Well at least you didn’t kill any innocent cats. I still have something to stick my pecker in later.” (no Brown didn’t ever screw the cat, to my knowledge)

Laughs, beers and some real esprit de corps were born that night.

I say buy the Seals book. Its an easy read and if you want to know what really happened this is your chance. Know that your money on the book will probably pay for lawyers to keep the guy out of trouble. I think its the least we can do to honor one of the men that killed that SOB Bin Laden that took so much from us.

 http://amzn.com/0525953728

Remember my Pearl Jam salute? Rocking it with Jay-Z. 99 Problems. Pretty cool. Respect.

Tuesday, I hate you like Monday

After a long weekend Tuesday gets to feel the hate of a typical Monday. Back to work, but at least it should feel like a fast week.

Well this Labor day the dinner club met again. Hosted by yours truly, its nothing special, a couple friends get together once a month and actually cook a meal rather then going out to eat. We do that to, not that theres anything a matter with it. Anyway this month I threw together an apple smoked pork roast, sweet potatoes, and stuffed jalpenos. Closed it up with my version of ice cream pie. May have read in a previous post about how I was going to recreate a local resturants desert here:

http://www.whatsupbrock.com/goodbye-weekend-hello-monday/

Anyway this was version 1.0 I have a few tweaks to make with crust and a layer of cake or Oreo cookie type stuff to breakup the ice cream a little. Not bad for a first attempt off the cuff. I had a recipe I found but lost it when I didn’t bookmark the site. Duh. At least this way I don’t have to give credit or cite the originator. It’s essentially ice cream, Reese’s peanut butter cups, peanut butter, pretzels, chocolate sauce. I’ll drop the recipe in appropriate section later.

I hope everyone had a good and safe weekend. Well better then Michael Clark Duncan as he is assuming room temperature right about now. Neil Armstrong, Duncan, who’s next? It’s always a trifecta of death. How’s Yoko Ono’s health? If we have learned anything, when you get sick, stay home and put some ‘tussin on it. Go to a hospital and surely you’ll wind up dead.