Power Hungry

What’s up internetizens? If your week has been anything like mine, y’all have got to be tired. Life needs more opportunities to stop and refuel.

I want to start with a quick conversation about fuel…people fuel. I got a coffee the other day and…well, lets just start at the beginning.

I realized this past weekend that I have a weird social anxiety thing at restaurants. I was hitting up my local breakfast spot, Royal’s Bagels and Deli, and after I got up to the register and ordered my food, I ordered some tea to go with it. The girl behind the register told me that they just ran out, and that it would be about 10 minutes before they could brew another. I ended up standing there for a minute having a fit of ‘um’ing and ‘uh’ing…stuck in internal conflict of what to drink in the absence of tea. On the inside I was thinking, “Crap, I don’t drink soda, so it’s either coffee or water. Coffee or water. Crap.” I don’t know why I started freaking out, maybe I just don’t like being put on the spot like that where busy gets brought to a standstill over a change of decision. Regardless, I ended up choosing coffee…not having drank coffee in years. I really don’t know what I was thinking.

I don’t know how many of y’all out there are coffee drinkers, but coffee is a hell of a drug, especially if you’re not in the habit of drinking it. My…system, got completely screwed up that day. My schedule was all off.
I used to drink a cup of coffee almost every morning, back in high school or somewhere there about. I don’t know how I used to do that, especially back in my youths.
Those of you that drink coffee, how early did you start drinking it? College, high school, middle school, grade school even? How early these days are we getting ourselves hooked on caffeine? I remember, as a kid, I used to drink about 3 to 5 Mountain Dew‘s a day. I’ve got to think, coffee has to be healthier than that…much healthier.
It just messed me up…was really surprised at how much one cup of coffee can flip your day around.
Coffee…clearly too much for my system. Energy drinks like Red Bull and Monster…nothing, no better than soda really. 5 hour energy shot…cranks me up for an hour or so, then dumps me later in the afternoon (that no crash marketing, load of coddle swap). For the record, sweet tea is what keeps me at my baseline, where there is still a lull in the afternoon.
I don’t want to sleep through the day. I don’t want to have enough energy coursing through me that I feel the need to fight a horse. I don’t want to crash. I just want to be awake enough to carry on. Can we make a drink or a supplement for that? I know we’re all made different, but I feel like there’s nothing out there that, on the worst of days, can’t keep me nodding off. I’ve even just tried supplementing my daily efforts with plain vitamin B trio…nada. Can we work on this? What is that word for, someone smarter is working on this?

While we’re on the subject of people fuel, I want to shift over to a legitimate food discussion.

For the first time in a long time recently, I had a steak that was just…bad. It’s been so long that I’ve been starting to wonder how you can really screw up a steak, but this place I went to brought me back to reality. I’m not going to say where it was that I got it at, because the place was honestly a little off the beaten path and I could tell that the staff was honestly apologetic about it. But the deal was this: the steak had no flavor whatsoever. No attempt was made to season it. No salt, pepper, rosemary, nothing. There was no marinade, or rub, just someone took a bland steak and threw it on the grill. Once they did that, they let it set until it had no life left in it whatsoever. Yea, it wasn’t quite well done, but it was pretty close. I order a medium-rare steak, and I’m a firm believer that anybody that orders a well-done steak, obviously doesn’t like steak and should probably just be ordering chicken.
I’ve seen people that will argue that well-done steaks can be extremely good, and if they’re not than it’s the fault of the chef if it comes out as rough as leather. I call shenanigans. If you cook a steak that much, you end up completely drying it out, really toughening it up. Nah, people who order well-done steaks don’t have any respect for steak.
Unlike these people, I love steak, and I want to take a few minutes here to talk red meat; cuts, preparation, cooking method, etc.
The cut of the steak is where I find the most discrepancy of favorites. I like the cuts that are the most tender, and have the most robust flavor. Given that, I usually go for a Filet Mignon or a Ribeye. Filet’s tend to be the most tender cut, and small enough to where you can do cool stuff with them, like wrap them in bacon.

You could also go for the Porterhouse (or T-bone, essentially the same difference), which has both a Filet and a New York Strip in it. The Strip is a pretty tender cut, but not near as much as the Filet. The Strip is a much bigger cut however.

My favorite cut right now however is the Ribeye, cut more from the rib section of meat, which has a lot of fat marbleization all throughout it, making it one of the most naturally flavorful cuts of meat.

There is another cut of meat that pretty good, that you should give a try if you classify yourself as a carnivore. Find yourself a steak house and order a Prime Rib sometime if you get a chance. Like the Ribeye, it’s also taken from the rib section that has a higher amount of flavor, and it’s usually cooked slow to keep all the flavors intact.

The Prime Rib is a hard cut to cook at home, because it’s essentially the entire rib section. You pretty much need a heat source that surrounds the meat, like an oven or a rotisserie, so doing it on the grill is a somewhat unfeasible option. Also, since it’s the whole rib section, it’s a pretty expensive cut of meat.
All the other cuts I mentioned are far easier to buy in single and double servings, so you’ve got a lot more options for cooking methods. The way I hear that most restaurants cook their meat is that they sear the outside to get some good char or grill marks and also lock in the juices, and then they pop the steak in the oven to finish it. I like to be a lot more hands on with my steak, so I cook mine to completion on the grill pretty much every time, or in my case (since I’m an apartment dweller) I just pan sear it. I have a cast iron skillet that works really well, but god is it hard to clean…so I’m going to toss it soon and go back to pans.
Everyone I know has a different preparation for their steaks. For some, it’s just some simple salt and pepper, others use a more complex dry rub with various other herbs and spices, some break it down in beer, or some kind of citrus juice, and others still let soak in a marinade for up to a day or so. Personally, I like to put together my own marinade which consists of worcestershire, balsamic vinegar, chili garlic hot sauce, dijon mustard, and a little lime juice. Right before it goes on the grill (pan) I sprinkle it garlic salt and some special steak seasoning. Throw that in the pan on medium heat, at about 6 minutes per side, and that makes for a good medium-rare to medium Ribeye. Perfect.

That’s my idea for a great steak dinner right there, and was my dinner the other night. Something else you can do which I’ve been doing recently, since I marinade, is pour what’s left of the marinade in the pan after the steak is done, add a little wine or liquor (I’ve got some brandy that I added), and let it deglaze to become nice steak sauce to add. A good steak doesn’t need much, if any, but I like to drizzle on just a little bit to set it off.
I doubt though that I have thrown together the perfect steak at this point. I bet y’all have some good recipes for a delicious steak, so I want to hear how y’all prepare your ideal steak. I know a few of you out there have got to have some skills. Tell me! Show me!

Before I depart from digestibles, there’s a series of commercials on the air right now promoting milk and its’ great advantages to…not drinking milk I guess. In one of these commercials, they show two personified bowls of cereal reacting to milk being poured into one, and orange juice in the other.
I want to stop right there. Do people actually do this? Are there people out there that put anything in cereal other than milk? They do…really? You’re daft…that’s absolutely abominable. I thought they were only rumors…water in cereal, OJ in cereal, coffee in cereal.
If you do this, well, there is something not quite right with your cabeza.

I’ve been known to have some odd tastes, I’ve put hot sauce on chocolate chip cookies before…but you have to know where to draw the line. I have to admit though, that some things…you just don’t know whether they will be enjoyable or not until you see that decision through. One of the things that I really thought that I was going to enjoy when I first heard of it was Riddick. Pitch Black was great, and Chronicles had a good story and great action. With the same writers and director throughout the entire series, it would stand to say that with the first two being very good that the third would follow suit.

Riddick

The stage has been set for the epic final chapter of the Riddick trilogy to unfold. When we last saw Riddick, he had just become the Lord Marshal of the Necromongers of the Underverse. He had command of a seemingly invincible army. So where do we pick up with Richard B. Riddick? Marooned on some backwater planet…beaten and broken, and being chased by mercenaries, as he always is.
There was so much potential for this movie to be epic, but it just fell so far short. Action would have been the way to go with this movie, but so much of the movie was spent on character development. Heck, they even gave him a dog, and tried to humanize him to some degree. This movie showed us a slightly softer side of Riddick. Don’t get me wrong, he’s still very much a badass, he builds a sword out of what looked to be an animal femur and sharpened talon. But I swear, at one point he shed a tear.
They spent 2/3 of the movie though setting up any kind of real conflict, and once we got to it…it just kind of fell flat. The casting was pretty weak too, the only redeaming quality of the extended cast being Katee Sackhoff‘s character, Dahl.
This was a very watchable movie, but missed the mark for a true Riddick sequel.
Riddick – 5 out of 10

We’re up to week 3 of college football, and again I wanted to give y’all my 5 recommendations for the games to be watching this week. So these are the ones I’d be keeping an eye on.

Thursday Sept. 12th
6:30 PM       No. 24 TCU at Texas Tech                  ESPN
Saturday Sept. 14th
11:00 AM     No. 16 UCLA at No. 23 Nebraska         ABC
2:30 PM       No. 1 Alabama at No. 6 Texas A&M     CBS
2:30 PM       Georgia Tech at Duke                        ESPN U
6:00 PM       Mississippi State at Auburn                 ESPN 2

Well boys and girls, I think I’ll call it quits there for the week. Hope you’re not salivating too much with all that steak talk. Until next week…

Keep your heads up, your minds sharp, and your hearts open.

– CVSleen

Breakfast Pods: Biscuit, Bacon, Cheese, and an Egg