Here’s the recipe:

Makes 6 – 8 Servings

• 1½lbs Beef Stew Meat cut in 1” cubes
• 2 tblsp Flour
• 1tsp Salt
• 2 tblsp Oil
• 1½ cups Strong Coffee
• 2 tblsp Molasses
• 1 clove Minced Garlic (I used chopped fresh)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1tsp Worcester Sauce
• ½tsp dried Oregano crushed
• 1/8th tsp Cayenne Pepper (I used an entire dried red chili)
• 1½ cups water
• 4 carrots cut in 1/2” slices
• 4 small onions quartered
• 3 medium potatoes peeled and cut up (I used two potatoes and a parsnip)
• ¼ cup cold water
• 3 tblsp Flour
• I added a couple of bay leaves too.

Coat the beef cubes with a mixture of 2tblsp flour & 1 tsp salt. In a dutch oven brown meat on all sides in hot oil. Stir in coffee, molasses, garlic, Oregano. Cayenne,1 tsp salt, worcestershire sauce. Cover & simmer over a low heat until the meat is tender, about 30mins. Blend ¼ cup cold water in to 3tblsp flour,add to the stew mixture. Cook and stir until mixture is thickened and bubbly. Serve in bowls. Great served with hot cornbread muffins.

Tiredness and mild delirium from the flight’s sensorial deprivation was settling in, as was the effect of a second beer. The re-absorption into the real world was hazy, this was a world I was completely unfamiliar with, but happy to be feeling very alive in. Delighting privately in this for a moment I remember smiling a wide and comfortable smile, adjusting my aviators, sitting back deeply into my seat, breathing deeply and exhaling slowly as I gazed out of the window across the burning golden landscape, quietly pondering the distance I had travelled, and how two worlds could coexist thousands of miles apart, blissfully independent, and then converge so lucidly upon a whim, at my behest. I felt powerful. I felt completely safe. I can even believe that I might have known I would write about it one day. I can still feel the heat from the sun, the condensation from the beer bottle running between my fingers, and I can almost conjure the smell from the car as we lurched on across the river, the Camry noisily and awkwardly shifting its automatic gears, and whining at every modest turn of the wheel.

Not much of the journey after this stands out in memory. Perhaps I was just weary and overwhelmed. Perhaps I stopped caring to make notes of my experiences, and instead immersed myself in them and started to live them. Perhaps I got my second wind. Perhaps I got drunk. In any case, I’m still here six years later.

I was meant to go to Vegas for a week, but I was convinced to come to Memphis instead. I still haven’t been to Vegas. Vegas can wait!

Rory

Be seeing you,

Rory

Yes I have seen Bangkok Dangerous. And yes, sadly, I have seen Knowing. Both movies are really bad. Knowing “could” be ok if only they’d stop baffing on about aliens and solar flares, and stop positioning Nicolas Cage to be the only man on the planet capable of saving the world, which he failed to do. Sorry if I’ve spoiled it for you. I don’t think I have, I think I have in fact saved it for you. You’re welcome.

I imagine as Knowing was being written, about a third of the way into the script the writer died, and writing duties were taken over by someone with a boner for sci-fi, or perhaps it was Nicolas Cage. I quite liked the numbers-telling-the-future-time-capsule aspect of the film. I can suspend my disbelief enough to watch a film like that, but then the golden rule (my golden rule) of films that want to include aliens (of which I watch very few by choice) was broken. Twice. Firstly, they showed the aliens. Secondly, they showed the spaceship. X-Files cocked this up too, many years ago. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

So, all this neatly brings me on to explaining the design of this site. “I know what you’re thinking:” It looks a little like post apocalyptica as seen in films of the like I have just been criticising. Well, if you were thinking that, and you probably weren’t, I suppose it does. But unarguably I think it looks cool, and perhaps that is the very reason I can often find myself in a cinema regretting the decision to watch a Nicolas Cage movie.

What shall I watch today I wonder?

Rory

I spend this time in a number of different ways. Today I read several pages of Slash’s “autobiography.” The first 51 pages have been monstrously boring. Slash’s ghost writer embellishing rather uninteresting stories of his childhood and his early-age epiphanies that turned him into the Slash that we all know. Boring. Get to the tours and whores. I don’t care that you rode a BMX and stole a lot of shit.

The second thing I attempted was to watch Toy Soldiers. I love this movie, but I don’t have time to watch all of it, so I stopped.

The third thing I did today was create this blog. And now I must put on my pants and go and bow a dead man’s bow.

Be seeing you,

Rory

Shiitake Mushroom Pasta

Very pleased to have got to the little pre-farmer’s market drop-off today. Picked up some lovely shiitake mushrooms, sweet red onions, a couple of varieties of baby lettuce, mustard spinach, and half a dozen eggs. Shopping doesn’t get better than this! I love the excitement of buying fresh stuff straight from the farmer’s, and I’m subsequently consumed by the potential it tempts upon my culinary imagination.

Well, today was this: Shiitake mushroom, sweet onion, garlic, sage and thyme cream sauce with spaghetti and grated parmesan.

It turned out very light and incredibly fresh, a testament to the ingredients more than to the chef.