Slamland 2

The spammers have decided that us little guys are not to be allowed to run our own email servers anymore. They didn’t do it via legal machinations rather, they did it the old-fashioned way; brute force.

This is the end of a 7+ month battle between spammers and myself. Until 3 months ago, I ran my own self-hosted mail server. All my domains were on it. I have just taken that system off-line permanently.

What happened is that I was getting barraged by 250+ spams per day on each account. My normal email was getting buried to the point that I couldn’t even find it. My mail bins were over-flowing with spam and I couldn’t even sort it from the legitimate stuff. MS Outlook was no help either. The Outlook rules processing was taking loads of time from my laptop and it still wasn’t effective. Long story shortened, after trying some seriously hefty solutions, including some paid front-end services, I had to give it up. There is no way to keep ahead of the spammers and still get my real work done. I was spending hours per day on it instead of on writing, marketing, and sales. It wasn’t doing my blood pressure any good either.

I have now gone to the dark-side and opened Gmail accounts. After months of testing, it is confirmed that Gmail does what they say on the label, they kill all spam. Yes, my new email addresses no longer have my personal domain names in them but I don’t get the spam either. Neither do I have to spend the hours of maintenance required to keep the mail server alive (it was continually choking on the sheer volume of spam).

It will probably take a few months before I get around to updating all my accounts with the new addresses but then contacting me will be easier and I will be more responsive. Sometimes we have to pick and choose the battles that we engage in. Are they worth the bother? In the end, what is more important, focusing on core activities or fighting over principles (principles that don’t put a single dime in my coffers)? No government could have passed a law that would get me to do this but the spammers simply wore me down.

Mirrored from The Slamlander.

I haven’t posted a recipe for quite some time. It’s long past time for another southwestern dish, methinks.

Description

Machaca is basically shredded beef. While the original recipe calls for dried or jerked beef, the more modern ones use boiled and shredded beef. It is used as the basic meat in tacos, burritos, and tamales. It can also be made from pork.

Most machaca dishes now are made from beef that has been well-cooked, shredded then cooked in its juices until the desired consistency is achieved, which in Phoenix, Arizona can be soupy, dry or medio.  In Tucson and south, the preparation is almost always dry, and approximates more closely the taste and texture of the original dish prepared from dried meat. – From Wikipedia

I don’t like the Arizona form, I like it moist and spicy and that is what I’ll make here.

Ingredients

1. 600g of lean roasting beef – do NOT get this pre-cut into stewing beef. Do NOT get stewing beef.
2. 1 tin (199g) of La Consteña brand Chipotle Peppers in Adobo sauce.
3. 1 large onion
4. Lemon juice
5. Lime juice
6. Rosemary
7. Salt
8. Black Pepper
9. Garlic powder
10. Olive Oil
11. I may have forgotten something but it is in the text below.

Usage

Machaca can be used directly as the meat filling in a Taco. I can also be used as the filling for Tamales. It can also be a part of the filling for a Burrito. There are many other recipes where Machaca can be and is often used.

Boil it!

I started out with a very nice and lean side of roast beef, of about 600g, from the Migros. I stuck this in a large pot of boiling water. I threw in some salt and cumin. The key ingredient that everyone misses here in Europe is cumin. You got to have the cumin and you have to have enough of it. In this case a tablespoon of the powdered stuff (All the TV Chefs talk about using whole grained spices for more flavor. That may work in production kitchens cooking large quantities but for home cooking, you need to use powdered spices. Yeah, they go flat faster but you also don’t buy as much at a time. Importantly, powders blend in to your dishes better) .

One of the things that most do wrong is to sear the meat. Stop it! Searing seals in the juices and also prevents it from cooking through enough to tenderize quickly enough to become shred-able. Searing simply slows an already slow process down. I cut it into four large chunks along the grain. and toss them into the pot. As the water evaporates, add more and keep boiling until the meat shreds easily. It usually takes a few hours. Then let it cool enough to handle comfortably. Do not discard the broth!

Shred it!

It helps to do this while the meat is still warm. There are many methods of shredding the meat. The traditional one is to use a pair of forks and pull the meat apart with them. However, the tines clog easily and you don’t get a proper shred. My method is to use a very sharp knife.

The most dangerous tool in a kitchen is a dull knife. When a knife gets dull then it will exact a blood sacrifice from the cook by slipping and cutting what isn’t intended, like the cook’s fingers or other parts of the cook’s anatomy. How sharp does it have to be? Sharp enough to cut air and then a smidge sharper! Get them sharp with a good whetstone and keep them sharp with a good steel. Use a steel before cooking every meal. A sharp knife will only cut what is intended. This applies to all the cook’s knives, even the paring knives!

You scrape the meat along the grain instead of cutting it. It should shred very nicely and very efficiently. Remove and discard any gristle and fat that you run into during this process. You will wind up with 600g of shredded lean meat. If long strands of meat fiber come off too, that’s alright. You actually want that.

Cook the onion and prepare the spices

You will need a large onion. I used to like Vidalia’s but I can’t get them here. Course cut it and start it on a slow cook, in olive oil, in a very large, deep-dish, skillet. You need to get them translucent.

Pop open a tin of Chipotle peppers in adobo sauce ( I can actually get that here from the American Market, which should probably be called the Latin American Market. The brand is La Costeña. ) . You will need two chipotle peppers  and some of the adobo sauce as well. They will need to be diced finely (Remember those sharp knives? I used a large Chef’s Knife for this job) Be careful not to get any sauce on your hands. The capsicum doesn’t wash off well, even with soap. That’s why they use it in pepper spray, non?

Re-introduce the stock

Once the onion is ready then turn up the heat and toss in the shredded meat. Remember that water that you boiled the meat in? This is where you reintroduce it to the meat. The idea is to bring back that beefy taste. I also added a teaspoon of Bovril¹ , some garlic powder, rosemary, salt, black pepper, a dash of sugar, a dash of lemon juice, a dash of lime juice, and a dash of soy sauce. This should now be a soupy mess of meat fiber and spices. This is also where you add in that Chipotle that you diced fine in its adobo sauce. Stir it all up really well.

Once it comes to a boil you are on the most sensitive part of this dish. From now until it’s done, you cannot leave it. It has to be reduced to where the meat is just barely moist and at this point, it is really easy to scorch. Even a slight scorch will turn it horrible. You can’t hurry this part. Set it on the lowest sustainable simmer and stir as required to keep from scorching. Watch it like a hawk. Step away and it’ll scorch and all your efforts to this moment will have been wasted. It’s finished when there is no more liquid but the meat is still moist. Take it off the fire immediately.

Use it or Store it

For freezing, we use small freezer bags for about 130g of machaca per bag and rolled flat. We call these shingles and you’ll see why after they are frozen . Get as much of the air out of the bag as you can and put them on a flat freezer shelf to freeze. Afterwards, we stack them in the normal freezer bins with our other shingles of stuff (labeled and dated, of course). For our first meal with this batch we made corn tacos and tostadas and froze the rest.

Enjoy

1. Bovril is made in the UK and is basically a concentrated beef broth, beef bullion will work as well. [↩]

Mirrored from The Slamlander.

When you are in the final segment of your book.

I have the bones of the plot in place and am doing the final wrap. SG got sick (bronchial pneumonia) and I have been dealing with those issues for two weeks; she’s on antibiotics. In addition, Zhinn got a urinary tract infection; he’s on antibiotics as well. To complete the picture. I developed an abscess under one of my molars; I’m on antibiotics as well.

Needless to say, my wordcount productivity dropped through the floor and coming back to the story, I’m drawing a complete blank. Okay, I say, start the synopsis for the submission of the first book in the series — damn, getting goose eggs there as well. All in all, not a good day

Mirrored from The Slamlander.

Zhinn Lao Tzu, our brown tabby, moved in with us exactly two years ago (20Jul2009). At the time, we already thought that he was fully grown. The size of his paws should have told us otherwise. He was barely 4kg (8.8#) when he moved in and grew to his present 5.5kg (12.1#), of lean and healthy tomcat,  in less than 6 months.

I don’t talk about it much but at the time I had already been on anti-depressants for a few months. Having Zhinn around helped me to get off them. Cats are good companions and Zhinn watches me like a hawk. He will not let me collapse in the computer chair without getting a loud “meow” directly in the ear. This pleases SG to no end because, since my stroke (May, 2007), she worries about me constantly. She worries less with my buddy Zhinn around.

Mirrored from The Slamlander.

Last Saturday Salegamine(Salegamine) and I splurged. We bought a Climatiseur (aka: Air Conditioner) for our office. It will, hopefully, prevent server melt-down ¹

We went to Migros Home Center and found a cheap 7,000 BTU/2,000 watt unit that is good for at least one room. Since that is also the hottest room in the flat, it will go a long ways towards keeping the rest of the apartment cooler as well. Right now, it is 27C outside and I read 22C in here, with the office door wide open to the rest of the apartment.

The brand is a model Fresco 70, from Sonnenkönig of Switzerland, for 300CHF.

1. This has been an annually recurring problem for some years now. [↩]

Mirrored from The Slamlander.

It’s a Texan , magazine called The Red Pub. I got there via recommendation of nightwind292, thanks Nightwind .

Prior to this, I had never considered submitting to publications, only to my own blog. They wanted a conservative author and Nightwind nudged me over there.  I wrote an article, about 1,200 words, over the course of two days. I submitted it yesterday. Now to see if they accept it. If they don’t, I can always post it here

The main thing is that they are definitely a Houston rag and their main thing is Houston and Texas. I know Houston fairly well as my second wife (~10 years)  is a Texas Cajun from Nederland, Texas. I also have a nephew in Austin, TX. I am not a reporter and I think that the article that I submitted will make that clear. It is an Op-Ed piece.

Oh well, if they accept it it’ll be all good. I had never planned on taking the Slamlander to print before so this is a new horizon of possibilities. Frankly, I could use the experience. I have never really had to Feed the Beast before, writing to a schedule. Well, I’ve always set internal schedules, you have to if you ever want to finish a novel and I can easily drop 2,000 words per day and print articles are usually 1,000-1,500 words. However, that isn’t the same thing as meeting publication deadlines. I hope that they will take me on

Note: If this shows up twice it means that I still cannot edit and resubmit articles to LJ.

Note2: It looks like edits are once more possible When did I fix that? *sigh* I’m feeling OLD.

Mirrored from The Slamlander.

I often check on news at home and this LA Times article struck me as hilarious. It is the story of a project at Orange County International Airport, known by its modern name of John Wayne Airport¹ . The project is a classic example of how not to run a project. What was supposed to be a 3-4 year 11 million dollar project has now morphed into a 10 year 30 million dollar behemoth. This is without taint of corruption or scandal of any sort.

For one, the original cost estimate was simply the price of the equipment, without consideration of installing it. Then there is the issue of where to put it. Power plants are not small or trivial. No one on the original planning board considered that they would have to create a dedicated building for it (a 5 million dollar: Duh!) or have to upgrade to the most recent air quality standards (Oopsie!).

But by the time contractors started up the engines in late 2010, the county had to spend more than $1 million to refurbish the generators, which needed lubrication and had to be modified to meet new air-quality standards.

The whole thing is a classic example of how not to plan and that infrastructure costs can be many times more than the simple cost of equipment.

Having grown up in Orange County and knowing the local nuances and culture, I laughed at this story. The sad part is that at no time did the Board of Supervisors have the option of simply cancelling the project. It was both too large and cleaning up the resultant mess would be more costly than going forward; a classic example of what people mean when they reference  “Mister Toad’s Wild Ride”.

– for your amusement

1. Yes, not so modern. It shows my age, I guess. [↩]

Mirrored from The Slamlander.