November 15, 2011
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1 Either eggs ain't what they used to be or I've completely lost my touch when it comes to making a meat loaf.
2 Or both.
3 Haha, no news, once again, is good news!
4 I've suspected a government conspiracy with eggs for a while now.
5 Nothing else to write about.
6 My suspicions began a few weeks ago when I hard-boiled a few eggs.
7 I've done that before. I'm guessing so have some of you.
8 Only this time, the eggs were smaller. I was in a hurry one morning and thought I might just down a hard-boiler on my way out the door.
9 You would have thought that someone had glued the shells to the egg whites.
10 Have you ever been in a hurry while trying to open a stubborn hard-boiled egg?
11 By the time I was done opening the thing, it looked like Scarface.
12 It had also reduced in size from its "large" title to something distortedly close to one of those cha-cha eggs you buy at a guitar store, only white, grey, light yellow, and a little rubbery.
13 Anyway, I was in a bit of a hurry, so I downed it anyway. Almost choked to death, but fortunately, I made it through what seemed a major crisis at the time.
14 A couple of days later I spent an hour or so trying to make the best meatballs in town. Some ad online had popped up and inspired me. It boasted that it had the recipe for the perfect meatball.
15 I usually laugh in the face of a challenge like that. I learned to cook by watching my Mom, who was a hundred percent Italian and the best cook around, which anybody would tell you. And she always made great meatballs, which were much larger than the meatballs people serve nowadays.
16 But of all her dishes, she never felt completely satisfied with the way her meatballs came out. I never minded; they were always awesome to me, steamingly wonderful with her amazing sauces zooming in, stinging you in the nose and then punching your lights out with sheer love.
17 She seldom complained, but always had me taste the sauce, or test the meatball for the "al dente" needed in all Italian cooking.
18 I always saw that as an easy, guilt-free hors d'oeuvre.
19 Since she seldom complained, I assumed all was right. Evidently, she always thought she could do better. One fine evening when I came home and she was absolutely elated. I said, "Hey, you look pretty happy!"
20 "I made the perfect meatball tonight!" she replied, delightedly.
21 She couldn't wait to throw one on a wooden spoon and let me try it. Naturally, it was awesome, but I always thought her meatballs were awesome. She stood like one of those cooks on a cooking show, eagerly awaiting response from audience testers.
22 I said, "Oh my God! Yum!" She nodded in agreement. She seldom bragged about her cooking, but when my Mom KNEW she had made the perfect meatball, the heavens would open up and cheer. They just enjoyed the smell wafting up from our home.
23 After that day I tried for years to make the perfect meatball. I never could until around eight or nine years ago. For the life of me I can't remember how, but it was an amazingly perfect blend of onion, garlic, bread crumbs, egg, salt, pepper, fresh herbs, olive oil, and green onions, for subtlety.
24 And I remember thinking the same thing: "I made the perfect meatball tonight!"
25 It's an art. It's a lot tougher than a lot of other things that seem tougher.
26 But in the past year, my meatballs have fallen apart. The flavor is never quite blended properly. I experiment and experiment, but I just haven't been able to produce.
27 Last night I saw that I had a little ground beef and pork that needed to be cooked, so I decided I wasn't going to fuss around with meatballs, I was going to make the "perfect" meatloaf!
28 I looked over some old cookbooks, and even tried googling some recipes for surprise ingredients, but gave that up when I realized that Google has become senile and no longer knows how to Google.
29 I googled "meatball recipes", for example, and it took me to a room-addition website.
30
31 I was super careful, and made a wonderful blend of the same flavors I had used when I made my perfect meatballs a few years ago. I put it together, and even put it in one of those meatloaf pans, lined with extra virgin olive oil.
32 I kept a steady eye on the oven, never trusting a timer. I had a timer going, but I have a pretty good eye.
33 It cooked to perfection, and when I pulled it out of the oven, I instantly noticed that the oven blast smelled wonderfully of garlic and herbs.
34 I looked at it and it looked as good as it smelled. It looked perfect!
35 I took it out, put it on the cutting board and let it cool down so that it would hold together better.
36 While it cooled, I scooped a little of the meat that was left into a bowl and formed one meatball, just as a taster. I also wanted to see if the concoction was going to hold together or not.
37 I rolled it into a ball and tossed it gently into an iron skillet. It sizzled and smoked, but smelled amazing.
38 I left it in a little longer perhaps than I should have, but when I took it out, it almost rolled off the counter, clearly a good sign.
39 I popped it in my mouth. It was a little hot, but tolerable, and delicious!
40 The perfect meatball!
41 After a fashion I went over to the loaf.
42 I carefully lifted it out of the pan and onto a waiting plate. It held together nicely. That's the first sign. I then tried slicing a piece, and it was pretty shaky. It wanted to split on me and die, but it held its own.
43 I tasted it. Slightly salty, but really amazing. I couldn't wait to cut the rest of it up.
44 But as I took the knife to it, it started falling apart.
43 I suspected that it was the eggs once again, damned, damned eggs!
44 I just stayed off that pitch, decided simply to refrigerate it so that it might hold together.
45 I was crushed, and howled at the moon about how the government MUST be putting something inside our eggs!
46 Then I laughed. I had made a couple of baked potatoes and homemade cole slaw, ate the slaw and stuck the potatoes into the fridge. Anybody can make a potato, but nobody can make a slaw like this guy.
47 : / <----------- uncool sideways unsure guy who isn't sure of things, and is therefore insecure and unsure.
48 Well, that's the news. Eggs ain't what they used to be. Any fool knows that.
49 No news is indeed good news. If I could get fifty items out of a dinner failure, then I have to be the best journalist on the planet.
50 The nice thing is that today I'll have leftover meatloaf to serve for dinner.
51 Or spaghetti with a marvelous meat sauce.
52 It all depends if I could hold it all together or not.
53 Wish me luck.
54 Peace.
~H~
