Eating your vegetables

I know this is not a cooking blog but so what. Here's a recipe for a little thing I like to call Barbecued Cabbage. OK, I don't necessarily like to call it that but I don't mind.

1 large cabbage

3-4 slices bacon, snipped into pieces

1 small onion, diced

½ green pepper, diced

½ cup (or more?) BBQ sauce

½ stick butter

Of course, you can add or subtract anything you want.

Carve a large cone/crater out of the base of the cabbage. Maybe 2” deep, 3-4” across. Eat the part you carved out.

Form a foil donut as a base for the cabbage.

Sauté the bacon, onion, and pepper.

Drain the mixture and save some bacon grease.

Stir the BBQ sauce into the mix.

Place the cabbage crater-up on the foil donut on the grill. Paint the outer leaves with the bacon grease.

Fill the crater with the mixture.

Plop cubes of butter on top.

Grill over indirect medium heat for an hour and a half. Maybe 2 hours. You can add wood chips for a smoky flavor. If you don't have a grill, I don't know what to tell you.

When the mixture is bubbling, the cabbage is probably done. Allow it to cool a bit.

Use tongs to move the cabbage to a plate. Did the donut come with? That’s OK.

It's still hot. Let it cool even more.

Remove the burnt outer leaves and the donut. Throw the slag away.

Cut the cabbage into wedges and serve to people you like. If you don't have any friends,

That’s about it. I don’t know if that sounds easy or hard. But I’m telling you it’s super easy.

A Winter Story to Warm Your Heart

Here is a brief tale as told by my twenty-six year old son. It happened recently in the heart of an American municipality where male siblings are quite fond of one another:

This story requires that I use an alias, as there may be some touchy legal issues. So I’ll call myself Zevin Zitchell. I live and work in downtown Zilladelphia. I work close enough to home that I often just walk. This afternoon I was walking home from work, on a sidewalk, along a one way street. Even though the street is one way, there’s room left to park along the curb and still allow traffic to flow. It snowed yesterday in Phi….sorry, Zilly and there was about three inches still on the ground. The temperature was in the thirties. I wore a waterproof hoodie, shorts, and tennis shoes, and carried a backpack. Because it was now sprinkling a bit, the icy sidewalks were extremely slick. The city had salted the streets so I decided to walk off the sidewalk, kind of on the edge of the street so I wouldn’t slip and fall.

So I was walking along minding my own business a couple of blocks from home. Suddenly I felt a thump on my back, and I immediately recognized the projectile as a snowball. I quickly turned around and saw an approaching SUV, a dark blue something, I’m not sure the make. I was on the left side of the road so the SUV was passing me on my right. A youngish white guy – I presume the snowball thrower - was hanging out the rear driver’s side window. As the SUV passed, the guy yelled at me, “Hey, dumbass, why don’t you put on some pants, it’s cold outside!” The SUV drove on.

I almost never wear long pants. Even if it’s freezing outside, I’m usually fine as long as I wear a jacket and cover my head. As long as I’m not outdoors for hours or something. So shorts and a jacket is the uniform of the day. Besides, eff him, it’s none of his beeswax what I wear.

Furthermore, I’ve been in a number of snowball fights where friends hurl consensual snowballs at each other. I realize it can be quite fun and generally doesn’t hurt. In fact, in this case it didn’t hurt either; as I was wearing a fairly substantial waterproof hoodie and only felt a mild thunk. But that’s not the point. I’ll admit firstly that I had just finished a pretty tough day at work and my mood was a bit….hmm…..let me see….cranky. And besides, this was not a fun game of snowball toss among friends. It was a nasty, malicious prank directed at a complete stranger, who was just walking home from work, minding his own business, on a cold, rainy day. So I was pissed. Of course they had driven away so there was nothing I could do about it anyway. Still, I thought, those bastards, I wish I could beat their ass or something. “Whatever,” I thought.

Just then I noticed brake lights as the SUV become stuck in traffic at a stop light a block ahead. It was as if God had flung the traffic control switches and spoke directly to me: “Zevin,” God declared, “you must do what is commanded!” I seized my opportunity.

I sprinted toward the SUV as it sat waiting for the green. As I approached from the driver’s rear side, I noticed that all the windows were now rolled up. Tinted windows, as I recall. Everything was rolling so fast I wasn’t really sure what I would do if I was indeed lucky enough to reach the SUV before it was able to pull away. It turns out I caught up in plenty of time. I realized that I must formulate a plan in a flash. I thought to myself, “kick a dent into the car? Punch the guy?” Punching the guy was out of the question since the windows were up and I actually couldn’t see inside. Then, through what must have been divine guidance, it all became automatic. I cocked back my right arm and elbowed the driver’s side rear window as hard as I could. The window shattered into a billion little pieces and showered the interior of the SUV. I saw the guy in the back seat as he cowered away from my side and noticed another dude in the front passenger seat with eyes like golf balls. I never saw the driver. Somebody yelled, “Holy shit! What the fuck, dude!! Holy Shit!!” The guy in the back seat finally turned his head to see what was happening. So I said, “Hey dumb ass, why don’t you fix your window. It’s broken.”

Then I turned and walked away in the direction I came from. I figured they couldn’t follow me or run me over, since it was a one-way street. I continued to the next block, turned right, and walked around the block to get home. I never saw the SUV again.

The whole thing was surreal. I’m pretty sure the other guy did a (minor) crime in heaving a snowball at me. I’m not sure the legality of my reaction. I also don’t think I care. My crankiness had subsided. I had a much better day after that.

Change

Yesterday while working a day shift I stopped by the 7-11 for a little snack. I had no idea what I wanted but I preferred something filling, maybe sweet(?), and at least marginally nutritious. I settled on a Payday candy bar – a delicious combination of peanuts, caramel, and chewy nougat. OK I'm not certain about the nougat. Anyway, a regular sized candy bar cost a buck. (ONE DOLLAR for a basic candy bar, you gotta be kidding!) A sign read “Buy two for $1.50.” Fair enough, I thought. I’ll buy two and save one for tomorrow. So I did.

I noted there was a lone cashier behind the counter assisting a garbage man, who was the only person in line ahead of me. I didn’t recognize the cashier, a youngish black fellow with a white shirt and tie and gold colored name tag. He didn’t wear the usual red 7-11 smock. I wasn’t sure if he was a visiting manager or a brand new employee. The garbage man was cashing in lottery tickets and buying more. I wondered to myself: if there is only one person in line, is it really a line? I knew for sure this was a line since it contains two people. But was there a line before I got there. I didn’t think so. Anyway, the clerk was taking a while handling the lottery transaction. Like a few minutes. Meanwhile, an actual line was forming behind me. Finally, the garbage man got his new tickets and moved on. The clerk looked at me and I placed the candy bars on the counter. I said, “How you.” He said, “All right, how you doin’.” I said, “Excellent.” The clerk rang up the candy bars and said, “One sixty.” (I guess there’s tax on Paydays.) OK here’s where it gets complicated. You need to follow the sequence of this. I held in my hand one of those little gummy plastic coin pouches that my grandfather used to use. The one you squeeze lengthwise to open it. Inside were a dozen or so dollar coins I received as change one day from the stamp machine in the post office. Some Sacagaweas and a couple of Susan B. Anthonies. (Never put a twenty in a stamp machine. You’ll get dollar coins back and then you have to strategically spend them to get rid of them. Leave them as tips or something.) So I told the guy, “You’re going to love this,” and I handed him two Susan B’s. He took the coins, stared at them for about a second and a half, then tossed them into the till and shut the drawer. He then looked at the guy behind me as the guy set his chili dog and Big Gulp down on the counter while I kind of side-stepped. Evidently, while brewing coffee, the second clerk had noticed the line growing and had hurried behind the counter to help. Clerk #2, a balding white guy in his sixties whom I recognized as working there for a long time hollered to the line, “Who’s next!” while clerk #1 rang up the guy with the chili dog and Coke. Folks started shuffling toward the second cashier and now I was between the two cash registers. I answered Clerk #2, “I’m not really next but he – and I nodded toward Clerk #1 – owes me my change.” Clerk #2 replied, “Oh, he does?” and he looked over at Clerk #1. I’m standing there in my police outfit, so I’m always being scrutinized anyway, but now I’m the dead center of everyone’s attention. The guy to my left took his chili dog and Big Gulp and backed out the door. Clerk #1 had heard me and so he reached over and picked up a quarter from the counter next to Clerk #1’s register, and handed me the quarter. He then prepared to ring up his next customer. (You’ve done the ciphering, right? Should have been forty cents.) I said to Clerk #1, “I need fifteen more cents.” I could tell I was really interrupting his flow. He turned away from his current customer again, grabbed another quarter, handed it to me, and attended to his next sale. I kind of shouted, “Dude! Now I owe you a dime!” I actually said dude. I mean I was not so much frustrated as incredulous. I chuckled. The guy replied to me, “Don’t worry about it, it’s extra.” I presumed he meant it had been left behind by a previous customer or someone had been overcharged or something like that. So right now I was a cop who just took ten cents from a cashier in front of eight witnesses and on video. I said to Clerk #1 loudly and clearly, “I’ll bring you back a dime later!” and left with my Paydays. Just surreal.

I never did drop off that dime.

Infant wink

The other day, a friend and I were eating at Taco Bell. A nice looking young couple were in the next booth. They has a baby in a car seat in the booth with them. As the couple stood to leave, the guy placed the baby in the car seat on top of the table for a few seconds. My friend's back was to the couple so he hadn't seen anything. The baby was maybe six feet away from me as its mom and dad tidied up the table. Then the baby winked at me. I mean his teeny little right eye winked right at me! I'm telling you this was an infant. Like a couple of months old or something. So the guy picked up the car seat and carried the baby past us as they left. I thought for a brief moment to say to the guy, "Hey, fellow, your baby just winked at me." I thought maybe he would find it amusing too, but I also thought that maybe the baby has some brain problem so I better just shut up right now. So I shut up. Still, I bet you've never had an infant wink at you.

Traffic Problem

I don't know what percentage of drivers actually stress out over obstacles to their travel plan. Personally, I do curse other asshat drivers as well as traffic engineering in general. For example, if I and a number of cars get a red light and have to stop, in order to allow like ONE car to proceed or some bike rider to cross, I cuss the government fools who fail to design a better system. "Damn red lights!" I will bark, all by my little self in my little car. Then I eventually get where I'm going and everything's fine. So... Today I was driving to work and somehow traffic was pretty light going my direction. In the distance was a pretty large intersection and my light was red. As I approached, my light turned green. I was the only car going my way as far as I could see. But crossing traffic was heavy, and I noticed as I crossed the intersection, about twenty cars stacked up at their red light while I sailed right on through. Then it hit me. I really should be consistent here. Now I'm the one holding up progress. What am I? Special? So I did the proper thing and cussed my own green light. It was the right thing to do. Now I always make a point to cuss all the green lights I am fortunate enough to drive through. True, now I am cussing all lights, both green and red, but I have to be consistent and fair, so as to set a good example for my kids. Makes sense, right?

Garbage Day

The most stupid thing I can remember happened to me this morning. It’s a ridiculous story and is true.

I went to bed late last night and slept in a bit. As I was waking, which is always a process, I heard what I assumed was the garbage truck, maybe on the next block. I hurried out of bed, threw on some shorts and a shirt and stepped outside to take the garbage can to the roadside. I was still really sleepy and clumsy as I pulled the trashcan across the front yard toward the street. I glanced down the street and saw a young couple about four houses away walking casually in my direction in the roadway. She was walking alongside he, who was carrying in one hand a large black bag of (apparently) trash, holding it by the red drawstring. I parked the garbage can by the road and wondered absently why the guy was carrying trash down the street. It occurred to me that maybe he had also heard the garbage truck coming and he and his girl were walking to meet the truck. I looked up again at the couple and they were now three houses away. I realized that it was not a bag of trash at all but a big shaggy black dog on a red leash. I broke out into laughter at myself. Then I noticed that all the cans up and down the street were upside down and empty. I had missed the garbage truck after all. I rolled the garbage can back across the yard and toward the side of the house. I knew for certain that this couple was laughing at me after watching me pull the can to the street and then back. And I was sure that they were amused at the silly man laughing all by himself at nothing at all.

I could tell I needed my coffee right away.

Condiments

Last night I was driving with my daughter and she asked if we could stop at Steak And Shake for one of their (allegedly) excellent milkshakes. I agreed to stop. I pulled into the drive-thru and ordered only the shake, and pulled up to the window. A little sticker on the glass read, "Salt and ketchup available upon request." So the kid opened the window, took my money, and gave me some change. In a few minutes, the kid returned with the milkshake. I asked him, "Hey, may I please have some salt and ketchup?" The kid handed me a few salt and ketchup packets. I asked, "May I have some more ketchup, please?" The kid reached under the counter and came out with about twenty packets and handed them over. He asked, "That OK?" I replied, "Yep, thanks!" and drove away. No burger. No fries. Just a milkshake. Cool practice, Steak And Shake. Now, I'm a bit slow on the deviousness uptake sometimes and it took me a while to consider that I should have pushed further, to see how far I could go. Could I have gotten a month or two worth of ketchup? Maybe. I will return to the drive-thru and request salt and ketchup without any food order at all.