… and I have a bladder infection. Draw your own conclusions.
I’ve been cooking for two days. Today, instead of going directly in to the kitchen to express my love with food, I’m whipping up an amateur foodie post.
Babka. Google tells me my site is the place to be for babka. I don’t know who began the babka rush, I blame that Splendid Table woman, but everyone has been Googling “babka.”
Salt. Gary sent me this link. The New York Times recommends you fry your eggs on hot slabs of pink salt.
Here’s what I think: if this were true, people would have learned to buy deer salt licks and fry eggs on those. But, a fine gift idea for the foodie who has everything. Except a slab of burnt salt.
Capon. Gary’s work has requested Cream of Carpet soup, which requires chicken stock, and I felt like making my own. I was looking for a stewing hen, and found a frozen capon. I assumed this was just a nice way to say, “Damn, hen, you’re fat big-boned!” and since I wanted the bones for stock, that was fine. Later, the talented cook at work let me know a capon is a castrated rooster. I assume it “tastes like chicken,” so I was still good.
Last night, I mentioned to Gary I had cooked the capon and it was resting and waiting to be cooled then flayed and dissected. “A capon!” Gary exclaimed, “I hate capons!” (Further proof Gary is a rooster.) “You KNOW that’s all dark meat, right?”
“No. It’s not a duck or goose, you know. It’s the same species as a chicken, it’s just a male.”
“That’s what makes the meat dark,” he patiently explained. “The testosterone.”
A little debate ensued. The word “Google” was flung about, in defiance and challenge.
Gary did come back and say that capon is sometimes used in place of duck or goose, but he stopped short of crowing that the rooster breast was dark meat. And as I thought about it, I convinced myself he might be right. Then I remembered chickens aren’t mammals and hen breasts and rooster breasts would be identical.
So, and here’s the big reveal: right now I don’t know, and the capon is all cooled in the fridge this moment. So I’m going right now into the kitchen to find out. I’ll put money that it tastes like a female. Otherwise, I’ll come back and tell you if I can taste the testosterone.
======================== Moments pass ======================
Psycho man. Breast is white meat.
Except, of course, it is indescribably dry and tasteless. I was apprehensive I might be assaulted with a strong hit of testosterone, but no.
Off to make my bones, then.
9 responses to “The Domestic Urge Returns”
I know this sounds crazy, but what about your basic cast iron or regular old skillet for frying eggs?
There are many, many times when I’m glad I’m out of the consumer mainstream. This is one of them.
Don’t capons have a hole drilled in their skulls? I dunno why, maybetp let all that testosterone out that’s sloshing around inside?
Salt slabs, eh – the new cedar. Always some new damn thing.
OK, so that’s trepanation, on people – an easy mistake to make. But capons are castrated – so no testosterone at all! Will that make it easier, or harder, for Gary to eat it?
Castrated rooster. There is no testosterone.
I’ve never tried to cook a capon. I’m more a fan of larger amounts of meat than I am of smaller. I guess my exception to that would be rack of lamb. I love me some tiny lamb chops.
Capons aren’t all dark meat, though, that seems like a silly assumption.
ehem . . .
I made skillet apple and raisian pancakes yesterday morn.
it was mindblowing and only 6points.
so there!
take that!
Becs – I think what they should sell is a slab of bacon you can put over your gas fire and fry an egg on. Big Dot – Do you know I took the five minutes between your comments to research “Roosters and trepanation.” I am tempted to casually mention the role roosters played in the 1980 presidential election and have you try to find that snipe. Hot Mom – Well, yes, that’s rational. Gary claims that roosters and other animals have other sources of testosterone. I just say “okay” and move on. Tami – I’d never cook one again – though the stock smells tremendous. I have no idea how much will be left after I remove the fat from it. I think a big flat of chicken thighs would give me want I want. Mrs. Hall – I made chopped salad and I bet that’s only 3 points! nyah!
Wings. Wings have the motherlode of the connective tissue on a chicken. They’re the gold standard of chicken stock bases. Alton Brown said so!
Tami – good to know! I will buy wings to use in the Cream of Carpet and keep the cock stock for myself.