Crime of the Century

Yeah ok, maybe not quite. I was driving home last Thursday when I was stopped by a motorcycle cop half a block from my final destination. I was told that there was an armed suspect lose in the area. Soon there were cops and blocking every damn street around, helicopters buzzing overhead. And on the street corner a small group of neighboreenos patiently waiting for the thing to be over. There was a blond woman in shorts just getting back from a jog, and it was getting cold. I took a couple of pictures with my iPhone. I'm surprised they came out at all considering how little light there was.

It was 6:30 pm when I got there, waited half an hour before taking off. Fortunately I have friends living nearby. It was not till 10pm till I finally could go home. Later I learned that two guys with kinves robbed a nearby Auto Zone, and were running out the door as a US marshal was just trying to enter. He shot one of the robbers dead, the other took off on foot towards my neighborhood. How inconsiderate. I hope the blond didn't catch a cold.

Furry Pigs

The mangalitsa, aka mangalica, is an ancient Hungarian breed of pigs, descent straight from wild boars. I had known of them for a long time, but I used to think they were just a curiosity like the Hungarian longhorn cattle that is kept around in the Hortobagy National Park for the entertainment of tourists. However, thanks to Michael Ruhlman I've learned that this furry piggy is also the source of superior tasting gourmet meat.

It turns out that there is a farm in California that not only raises these pigs but does it in a sustainable and organic way. You can learn all you want about them from their home site or blog. There are even a bunch of video clips of the pigs doing things that pigs do. The piglets are incredibly adorable.

The low rider is a little higher

It was a beautiful day today so I decided to go out and maybe photograph something. I was just driving around without any set idea. I drove west on San Fernando Road for a while, then started zigzagging around. I was cruising past a park when I was blinded by chrome. There were a bunch of beautiful restored old cars in the small parking lot. I had to pull over and take a closer look.
I grabbed my camera and strolled up to check out the cars and the gathering. There was even a DJ playing groovy tunes of the likes of WAR. I was told he was Steven Chavez from EastLARevue.com. The crowd itself was interesting too, there was a few white people, but mostly Latinos. There were some great faces and facial hair, including a few stunning handlebar mustaches. And hats, hats were big, as were bandanas. There was even one gentleman in a full zoot suit.
I found out that the event was organized by a couple of auto clubs, and the some MTV shoot was supposed to happen later on. A walked around, took some pictures and realized that the cars were not only classic, beautifully restored, but also they were all low riders! I happen to think that low riders are the silliest car fashion, but these babies were hot.

"All my friends know the low rider
The low rider is a little higher

The low rider drives a little slower
Low rider, is a real goer

Hey

Low rider knows every street, yeah
Low rider, is the one to meet, yeah

Low rider don't use no gas now
The low rider don't drive too fast

Take a little trip, take a little trip
Take a little trip and see
Take a little trip, take a little trip
Take a little trip with me"
(WAR)

The Case of the Stinky Woman

You gotta love old ads. They sum up the attitudes of their era better than any scholarly study could. The heroine of this beauty is a young woman with marriage on her mind and only one thing standing in her way...
I love a happy ending. Oh by the way, this ad reminded me of Madmen - an excellent tv series on AMC.

I had to cut up the original ad and rearrange the panels to fit in this space and be readable the same time. Bellow is the original layout. Clicking on it will open a larger copy.
Of course it's far too easy to pick on old ads. Their manipulations seem so clumsy and obvious from the distance of time. The same is commonly overlooked contemporary advertising, but it's all there if you just look hard enough. I once saw a billboard advertising beer. There was a surfboard, the name of the beer in huge letters, a bottle, and a woman, or rather, part of a woman. She was present from crotch to boobs, no head, but I guess all the important bits were there. The headless female torso hawking beer seemed bizarre to me, but didn't seem to get much reaction from anyone else. I wish I took a photo.

Stuff It!

Another odd bits from my collection. The first postcard is pretty self-explanatory, the second is a bit more intriguing. According to the explanation on the back, the snake is subject of "scientific force-feeding". Looks a lot like stuffing a sausage, doesn't it?

Korhely Soup

I like pickled things. In Egnlish this Hungarian soup is alternately called Souse's Soup, because of the the the flavor, or Night Owl Soup, because of the legend: supposedly it is to be eaten after a long night of carousing to ward off hangover. In my opinion both translations are awkward. Korhely is an archaic, folksy word to describe a rakish drunkard.

This is a pretty rustic dish, and I don't believe I had it once growing up, so have no family recipe, not that I have many of those anyway. In cookbooks and online I found many different versions from which I put together my version to a very satisfying result.

Ingredients

• 1 jar of sauerkraut, plus the pickling juice of a second jar
• 1 smoked ham hock
• 1 onion
• 1-2 spicy sausage (if possible Debreceni)
• 2 tbs sweet paprika (Hungarian)
• ground pepper to taste
• 2-3 slices of bacon
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 tbs flour
• 2 tbs vegetable oil

Preparation

Soak the ham hock changing the water several times for at least for 30 minutes. Boil it till tender. Drain, remove meat from bone and chop into bite size pieces.

In frying pan over low heat slowly render the fat from the bacon. Remove the slices and in the drippings sauté the onion till translucent. Pull off the heat and add paprika, stir, add 2-3 tbs water, stir again, then transfer to big cooking pot.*

Add sauerkraut and pickling liquid. Add ham hock pieces and bay leaf. Leave it on stove over medium heat.

Meanwhile prepare roux: Over medium-low heat combine oil and flour. Stir continuously till it turns golden brown. Pull off heat, and slowly, in small increments at first add several ladles of the soup liquid, stir tilll smooth. Transfer into big pot, mix in well. Add sausage. Season with pepper.

Bring to boil, then turn heat down and cook for 10-15 minutes.

At this point you can add sour cream, heat it together and serve. However it is one of those dishes that taste even better after sitting in the fridge for a day or two, and that goes better without the sour cream in it. I personally like adding the sour cream to the individual serving pots, but of course that cools down the soup.

The soup has a intensely sour taste with bites of porky goodness. It should be served with thick slices of hard crust bread.

*It's important to pull the the frying pan off the heat first, before adding the paprika, otherwise the it could burn and turn bitter.

Possible substitutions and omissions

Ham hock could be replaced by other, similar smoked pork parts, or omitted altogether.
Instead of bacon drippings, butter or vegetable oil could be used, at the cost of some flavor.
Those averse to spicy sausage can substitute hot dogs, though this is not something I encourage.
To tone down the sourness ca 2 cups of water can be used instead of the liquid from the second jar of sauerkraut.
To think about it, this dish could be turned kosher or even vegetarian without completely losing its character, but this is also not something I'd encourage.

Havana from Steamer

This picture is another mystery. I picked it up because I was intrigued by the inscription. There is no writing on the back, and I can't date it, but it is definitely of a very old Havana.

The Winter Of Our Discernment

Southern California has three seasons. Most of the year is summer. Summer is generally blindingly bright, and some call it hot, smoggy, and it is sort of, but nowhere compares to the hot and humid misery of St. Louis in August. Hot winds are possible, especially if it is an el nino year, but there is absolutely no rain. Consequently next comes the fire season. It starts at the end of summer and generally lasts a couple of month, till the rainy season begins. It is not rainy season like in the equatorial jungle where it doesn't stop raining for month, but this is the only time it rains at all, and "cold spells and some precipitation possible season" is awkward to say.

This is also the season when the locals forget how to drive. Their bewilderment by the strange moist substance makes them react in one of two possible ways: They either pretend that there is nothing different, and completely ignore the year's build up of oil slicks on the now wet roads, or alternately they drive as if they were in a raging snow storm. Either way spells freeway pileups.

Another interesting aspect of the LA winters is that in certain parts of town the streets have no drainage. I think that the idea is that the streets all sort of slant toward the LA "River" and all the rain water finds its way there. It does, eventually, but it's a slow process, and meanwhile the streets turn into a swamp.

Bread Pudding

This recipe is largely based on the Mexican Christmas Bread Pudding from Sheila Lukins' All Around the World Cookbook, but I made some changes.

1 (ca 1 pound) panettone (or similar fruit studded bread)
4 cups half-and-half
1/2 cup candied orange peel
1/2 cup dried cranberries
3 tbs Cointreau (or other orange liquor)
1 tbs unslated butter
3 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanillan extract

• Slice the panettone into thick slices, toast them for a minute or less on both sides under a preheated broiler. Be careful not to burn them. Once cool tear them to large chunks. In large bowl toss them with the half-and-half. Set aside for an hour, tossing occasionally.
• Toss the candied orange peel and dried cranberries with 2 tbs of the cointreau. Set aside.
• Preheat oven to 325˚F. Butter a 13x9-inch baking pan and coat with sugar the same way you'd butter and flour a pan. Shake out the excess.
• Whisk the sugar, vanilla, eggs and 1 tbs Cointreau till smooth. Add to the bread, along with the dried fruit and mix well.
• Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and bake till the top is golden brown, about 1 hour. Let it cool.

The original recipe calls for an orange liquor sauce, but it is far too sweet. The bread pudding doesn't need any sauce at all anyway. If anything I would make a sweet and tangy vine sauce.

Happy New Year!

When I was growing up in Hungary, bananas, oranges and tangerines were rarities that were only sold during the winter, when local, seasonal fruit was not available. Even then bananas were especially hard to come by. When a grocery store had a shipment it sold out within hours. I remember one afternoon in Budapest turning a corner and seeing one little grocery store putting out freshly arrived bananas. I immediately got in line and bought several kilos - enough for us and a couple of our neighbors.

I think the banana rice pudding might have been my mother's invention. It is very simple. Make sweet rice pudding with milk, let it cool, fold in banana slices and sweet whipped cream, refrigerate. Should be served cold.