Those sinking feelings about the season have outnumbered the positive outlooks so far.
55 thoughts on “August 22, 2022: Net Loss”
It's frustrating because the Twins have lost so many winnable games. The division is there for the taking, but the Twins don't seem able to take it.
Yeah, I think that pinpoints it pretty well.
Last time in Minny I had both fams over for dinner - hot dog fest. I made two versions: Chicago - curly snappy dogs with onions, peppers, tomato wedges, kosher pickle slices, and yellow mustard. And NYC style: all-beef franks (Hebrew National) sized to stick out the ends of the bun, with fresh sauerkraut, onions, and Dijon mustard.
I cut the buns New-England style for maximum carrying capacity. Alongside were Cape Cod kettle chips with sea-salt, and healthy salad.
Funny how many people made a hybrid version. Also several had just the dog with ketchup (no judging here).
What's your favorite dog?
My favorite hotdog is a brat. With cheese and sriracha ketchup.
Chili cheese half smoke from Ben's Chili Bowl with a side of chili cheese fries and a banana milkshake
Oh, I would have spaced this, but dido on the dog and side, but make mine a coke instead of the milkshake.
No celery salt for the Chicago dogs!!!???
Good callout - yes it's part of the package.
Just kidding. I'm not a fan of them (see current podcast intro re: foods too large for your mouth).
Last night I served beet & pork sausages from the local whole animal butcher with thick, homemade crème frîache and dill pickle chips. Borscht in a bun!
My favorite frankfurter is made by a butcher in my hometown, and I rarely get them. I have a very strong preference for natural casing dogs with a beef/pork mix. I scarfed two encased meats at a sausage shop that used to be across from the hospital just before the Poissonnière was born; one was a bành mí dog loaded with jalapeños. (A risky choice, perhaps.) Sonoran dogs are rapidly growing on me.
Tough one. I loved half-smokes in DC (with onions and brown mustard). Chicago-style dogs are great. Grilled brats with homemade kraut, stone-ground mustard. Grilled Italian sausage with peppers, onions and Dijon. Grilled red hots with onions, jalapenos and mustard.
Just as long as it's not a goddamn chicken dog.
A while back, I had these awesome white sausages in Innsbruck (Weißwurst) that were made from veal, together with pretzel, mustard, and a huge stein of beer. Not exactly a hot dog but yummo.
There’s a German meat market nearby that makes weißwurst, kockwurst, bockwurst, kalberwurst, and (my favorite) currywurst. I need to get over there before Oktoberfest to restock.
Alright, all this hot dog talk got me hankering for some encased meats for lunch. I’m going with lamb birria sausages drizzled with crème frîache, Yellowbird Serrano, El Yucateco XXXtra Hot Habanero, pickles red onion, & Chihuahua cheese rolled in small flour tortillas. Wish I had some avocado or guac on hand…
Smoked boudin rolled up in a tortilla and hit with crystal hot sauce is the most simple and perfect handheld lunch that I can imagine.
Coborns has some hatch chili brats that are pretty dang good
They're new to us as there's now a Coborns in Buffalo. Before we never shopped there because the closest one was in Clearwater
For hot dogs, I like a good kosher like the HNs (the koshers behind Section 130 at Target Field are pretty good) but our go-to is the bun length Oscar Mayer uncured Angus beef frankfurter. I'm not real big on brats, I prefer a Polish or Italian sausage. Favorite fixings would be spicy brown mustard, onion (I prefer them raw but grilled is fine), and kraut, sometimes a little relish. Probably my most favorite, though, is a good chili cheese dog or a pronto pup with yellow mustard.
I am all over the board on this topic. In terms of nostalgia, I really miss those bagel cheddarwursts that were often available in convenience stores and grocery stores. There were months, as a high schooler, that I would eat dozens of those each week. Never see them around anymore. Currently, when I make a bratwurst I place it on a slice of multigrain bread with a slice of American cheese and some BBQ sauce. Yup, that's it. I am more of a foodie when someone else is cooking or when I cook for others at the joint. At home, I am pretty basic. Well, other than my recent adventures in polenta, risotto and paella. I am this >< close to perfecting paella.
When we were kids my mom used to cut a slit in a hot dog, fill it with cheese, roll it in a slice of white bread and toothpick it in place, then bake it until the bread was toasty and the cheese was melty and the dog was hot and sweaty. And now I really want one.
This was on regular rotation at my high school cafeteria.
My mom didn't do the toothpick thing, but she would stuff cheese into a slit on a hot dog (Hormel Wranglers!!!111one111!!!) and fry the dogs. Oh, man, those were good.
Last time in Berlin, I saw hot dogs in the grocery store that had already been cored, so you could stuff whatever Wunderbar you wanted to in them. Das ist Hochkultur! But unfortunately, all this Kultur is cancelled out by the hooch they serve with CurryWurst in the food trucks - blech.
Cored hot dogs also can be used as beer straws in Yanqui Stadium.
All this talk about sandwiches is making me hungry...
If it helps, I smoked 8 lbs of pork shoulder yesterday. I was going to do a prime rib, but couldn't find one. I ended up getting a 15 lb shoulder, cut it in half for smoking, then cut the other half into two more chunks. I've got one quarter curing to become cottage bacon and the other to become capicola.
Can we talk about the two portions you didn’t smoke?????? Like, gimmie the deets.
Same!
I have them both sitting in a curing rub with various ingredients. In about a week I'm going to take the capicola portion, wrap it in collagen, and string it up in my basement for a few months, or however long it takes. Then I will eat it.
The other portion I'm curing for two weeks, then I'm going to smoke it into bacon.
I was coming here to make this joke.
But . . . aren't you always hungry?!
As it is summer grilling/salad season (ok, 11 months of the year qualify here) I made a couple last night, with friends over.
Number one was a Thai beef salad (Neu Nam Tok or Yum Nua) with tri tip that I sous vide-ed for four hours at 133, then charred on the grill. (I also added some steamed and chilled green beans, a couple of chopped green onions, some cherry tomatoes and cucumber, so it kind of split the difference between the two beef salads). Lots of mint, red onion, some shallot, some Thai basil and regular basil. Cilantro on the side. The key is the dressing: brown sugar, toasted brown rice ground to a powder, fish sauce, lime juice and minced Thai bird chiles. And some romaine lettuce to round it out.
The beef was perfect. I added a bit of soy sauce (light and dark) to the bag, then a bunch of pepper before grilling. A beautiful medium rare, edge to edge and very tender.
The second was a Vietnamese style rice noodle salad with grilled shrimp. Soften a couple of rice stick bundles, then rinse to cool. Untangle as best you can. Cut a bunch of sugar snap peas in half, julienne a red, yellow or orange pepper. Chop half a head of napa cabbage. Chop a couple green onions. Add generous amounts of quick-pickled shredded carrot and daikon.
Brine a couple dozen large shrimp (I used 21-25s, peeled and deveined from Costco). Drain and pat dry. Add a couple tablespoons of olive oil to coat. I then dusted with Szechuan Chile flakes and grilled in a grill pan. Would work well on skewers for individualized servings, however.
Add a handful of basil and Thai basil and a handful or two of peanuts to the salad and toss with nuoc cham (sugar, lime juice, fish sauce, hot water, minced garlic, finely sliced chiles, preferably ripe ones, to taste, let cool).
Fresh nuoc cham is awesome as a salad dressing.
Wow that seems awesome. Surprised there's no vinegar in the Nuoc cham.
Eldest daughter heading to college on Wednesday. I'm thankful that we are very close, but the side effect is that I'm an (internalized) emotional wreck. Oof.
I'll be getting closer to that next year. Pete will be starting junior high and Rick will be starting Kindergarten.
Good luck!
It's always easier when they know they're in the right place. Hopefully, that is true for her.
Thanks!
I'm pretty okay with the idea of her stepping out to college. It feels like she is in a good place. I'm not extra worried for her future or even safety, really.
The ache is definitely more of a selfish one. We spend a lot of time together. I'm thankful for all of that time. I don't have any regrets because I tried to maximize our time together. I was luckier than most in that regard. I will miss her.
I am dreading this day for myself, in precisely the terms you describe. It's still 6 years away for the first one, but I know my separation anxiety is already through the roof when there are weekends with cousins and such, so... Best to you, and feel free to update on how it goes, as a guide to those of us who will come after you.
❤️
Speaking of that, who is next in the Father Knows column?
could be you!
I walked into that one!
I'm at the other end of the timeline - The Older Daughter starts kindergarten after Labor Day.
She's been my coworker for 2 1/2 years now. I'm not sure how it'll be without her.
We empty nested for a total of 6 months. The second child went off to college the first year of Covid. Both kids came back by that March for online learning. The first child still has not gone back to college. He is trying to what direction to go. He did return to work at the joint and is now serving and bartending to earn some money while he decides what to do. The second child is entering her final year at UMD and looks like she will apply at Northeastern in Charlotte for her Masters degree. I am dreading this. Having her 4 hours away is bearable as we go up quite often for a day or two to see her. Next year it will be a journey to visit her.
Oh, that sounds hard. Ours will be 2.5 hours of easy driving, thankfully.
CC to zooomx: stopped in for a walleye sandwich yesterday afternoon with Miss SBG. I probably should have said hey, but we were hurrying. Was really good as usual.
Dang... I was here, and probably should have bumped into you, but yesterday was a mess. 3 called in sick for the kitchen and my dishwasher was late. I was all over the place and frankly a bit burnt out from 5 long days in a row. Sorry I missed you boss!
I've always wondered how sean gets the CoC picture to match the topic of the day so well, but I don't ask because I want to keep believing at least part of it is magic.
Cosign. Sometimes it is in your face, but sometimes it is subtle.
He does great work.
Thank you, thank you. It truly is a team effort. That's why unpaid interns exist; so I get authorship.
So, we have a new furnace and a/c in our house now. Our old furnace was original to the house so it's 42 years old. The blower motor was last replaced when Younger Daughter was a baby, about 25 years ago. Every time I had a repairman out to fix something on it they'd tell me I had to get a new one because the heat exchanger was surely corroded and about to leak carbon monoxide any minute. I got a look at that heat exchanger today. Solid as a rock with only a couple of spots of surface rust that I was able to rub off with my finger. With a new motor that thing could have gone another ten years. That said, I'll sleep much better this winter not worrying if the furnace will break down when it's below zero and I expect to see some savings on the gas bill, especially after I replace the old patio door and blow some new insulation into the attic.
How baseball has changed: Cory mentions that the Rangers have the exact same starting lineup today as yesterday as if that was something really strange. And nowadays, I suppose it is.
It's frustrating because the Twins have lost so many winnable games. The division is there for the taking, but the Twins don't seem able to take it.
Yeah, I think that pinpoints it pretty well.
Last time in Minny I had both fams over for dinner - hot dog fest. I made two versions: Chicago - curly snappy dogs with onions, peppers, tomato wedges, kosher pickle slices, and yellow mustard. And NYC style: all-beef franks (Hebrew National) sized to stick out the ends of the bun, with fresh sauerkraut, onions, and Dijon mustard.
I cut the buns New-England style for maximum carrying capacity. Alongside were Cape Cod kettle chips with sea-salt, and healthy salad.
Funny how many people made a hybrid version. Also several had just the dog with ketchup (no judging here).
What's your favorite dog?
My favorite hotdog is a brat. With cheese and sriracha ketchup.
Chili cheese half smoke from Ben's Chili Bowl with a side of chili cheese fries and a banana milkshake
Oh, I would have spaced this, but dido on the dog and side, but make mine a coke instead of the milkshake.
No celery salt for the Chicago dogs!!!???
Good callout - yes it's part of the package.
Just kidding. I'm not a fan of them (see current podcast intro re: foods too large for your mouth).
Last night I served beet & pork sausages from the local whole animal butcher with thick, homemade crème frîache and dill pickle chips. Borscht in a bun!
My favorite frankfurter is made by a butcher in my hometown, and I rarely get them. I have a very strong preference for natural casing dogs with a beef/pork mix. I scarfed two encased meats at a sausage shop that used to be across from the hospital just before the Poissonnière was born; one was a bành mí dog loaded with jalapeños. (A risky choice, perhaps.) Sonoran dogs are rapidly growing on me.
Tough one. I loved half-smokes in DC (with onions and brown mustard). Chicago-style dogs are great. Grilled brats with homemade kraut, stone-ground mustard. Grilled Italian sausage with peppers, onions and Dijon. Grilled red hots with onions, jalapenos and mustard.
Just as long as it's not a goddamn chicken dog.
A while back, I had these awesome white sausages in Innsbruck (Weißwurst) that were made from veal, together with pretzel, mustard, and a huge stein of beer. Not exactly a hot dog but yummo.
There’s a German meat market nearby that makes weißwurst, kockwurst, bockwurst, kalberwurst, and (my favorite) currywurst. I need to get over there before Oktoberfest to restock.
Alright, all this hot dog talk got me hankering for some encased meats for lunch. I’m going with lamb birria sausages drizzled with crème frîache, Yellowbird Serrano, El Yucateco XXXtra Hot Habanero, pickles red onion, & Chihuahua cheese rolled in small flour tortillas. Wish I had some avocado or guac on hand…
Smoked boudin rolled up in a tortilla and hit with crystal hot sauce is the most simple and perfect handheld lunch that I can imagine.
Coborns has some hatch chili brats that are pretty dang good
They're new to us as there's now a Coborns in Buffalo. Before we never shopped there because the closest one was in Clearwater
For hot dogs, I like a good kosher like the HNs (the koshers behind Section 130 at Target Field are pretty good) but our go-to is the bun length Oscar Mayer uncured Angus beef frankfurter. I'm not real big on brats, I prefer a Polish or Italian sausage. Favorite fixings would be spicy brown mustard, onion (I prefer them raw but grilled is fine), and kraut, sometimes a little relish. Probably my most favorite, though, is a good chili cheese dog or a pronto pup with yellow mustard.
I am all over the board on this topic. In terms of nostalgia, I really miss those bagel cheddarwursts that were often available in convenience stores and grocery stores. There were months, as a high schooler, that I would eat dozens of those each week. Never see them around anymore. Currently, when I make a bratwurst I place it on a slice of multigrain bread with a slice of American cheese and some BBQ sauce. Yup, that's it. I am more of a foodie when someone else is cooking or when I cook for others at the joint. At home, I am pretty basic. Well, other than my recent adventures in polenta, risotto and paella. I am this >< close to perfecting paella.
When we were kids my mom used to cut a slit in a hot dog, fill it with cheese, roll it in a slice of white bread and toothpick it in place, then bake it until the bread was toasty and the cheese was melty and the dog was hot and sweaty. And now I really want one.
This was on regular rotation at my high school cafeteria.
My mom didn't do the toothpick thing, but she would stuff cheese into a slit on a hot dog (Hormel Wranglers!!!111one111!!!) and fry the dogs. Oh, man, those were good.
Last time in Berlin, I saw hot dogs in the grocery store that had already been cored, so you could stuff whatever Wunderbar you wanted to in them. Das ist Hochkultur! But unfortunately, all this Kultur is cancelled out by the hooch they serve with CurryWurst in the food trucks - blech.
Cored hot dogs also can be used as beer straws in Yanqui Stadium.
All this talk about sandwiches is making me hungry...
If it helps, I smoked 8 lbs of pork shoulder yesterday. I was going to do a prime rib, but couldn't find one. I ended up getting a 15 lb shoulder, cut it in half for smoking, then cut the other half into two more chunks. I've got one quarter curing to become cottage bacon and the other to become capicola.
Can we talk about the two portions you didn’t smoke?????? Like, gimmie the deets.
Same!
I have them both sitting in a curing rub with various ingredients. In about a week I'm going to take the capicola portion, wrap it in collagen, and string it up in my basement for a few months, or however long it takes. Then I will eat it.
The other portion I'm curing for two weeks, then I'm going to smoke it into bacon.
I was coming here to make this joke.
But . . . aren't you always hungry?!
As it is summer grilling/salad season (ok, 11 months of the year qualify here) I made a couple last night, with friends over.
Number one was a Thai beef salad (Neu Nam Tok or Yum Nua) with tri tip that I sous vide-ed for four hours at 133, then charred on the grill. (I also added some steamed and chilled green beans, a couple of chopped green onions, some cherry tomatoes and cucumber, so it kind of split the difference between the two beef salads). Lots of mint, red onion, some shallot, some Thai basil and regular basil. Cilantro on the side. The key is the dressing: brown sugar, toasted brown rice ground to a powder, fish sauce, lime juice and minced Thai bird chiles. And some romaine lettuce to round it out.
The beef was perfect. I added a bit of soy sauce (light and dark) to the bag, then a bunch of pepper before grilling. A beautiful medium rare, edge to edge and very tender.
The second was a Vietnamese style rice noodle salad with grilled shrimp. Soften a couple of rice stick bundles, then rinse to cool. Untangle as best you can. Cut a bunch of sugar snap peas in half, julienne a red, yellow or orange pepper. Chop half a head of napa cabbage. Chop a couple green onions. Add generous amounts of quick-pickled shredded carrot and daikon.
Brine a couple dozen large shrimp (I used 21-25s, peeled and deveined from Costco). Drain and pat dry. Add a couple tablespoons of olive oil to coat. I then dusted with Szechuan Chile flakes and grilled in a grill pan. Would work well on skewers for individualized servings, however.
Add a handful of basil and Thai basil and a handful or two of peanuts to the salad and toss with nuoc cham (sugar, lime juice, fish sauce, hot water, minced garlic, finely sliced chiles, preferably ripe ones, to taste, let cool).
Fresh nuoc cham is awesome as a salad dressing.
Wow that seems awesome. Surprised there's no vinegar in the Nuoc cham.
Serious Eats recipe for nuoc cham
Eldest daughter heading to college on Wednesday. I'm thankful that we are very close, but the side effect is that I'm an (internalized) emotional wreck. Oof.
I'll be getting closer to that next year. Pete will be starting junior high and Rick will be starting Kindergarten.
Good luck!
It's always easier when they know they're in the right place. Hopefully, that is true for her.
Thanks!
I'm pretty okay with the idea of her stepping out to college. It feels like she is in a good place. I'm not extra worried for her future or even safety, really.
The ache is definitely more of a selfish one. We spend a lot of time together. I'm thankful for all of that time. I don't have any regrets because I tried to maximize our time together. I was luckier than most in that regard. I will miss her.
I am dreading this day for myself, in precisely the terms you describe. It's still 6 years away for the first one, but I know my separation anxiety is already through the roof when there are weekends with cousins and such, so... Best to you, and feel free to update on how it goes, as a guide to those of us who will come after you.
❤️
Speaking of that, who is next in the Father Knows column?
could be you!
I walked into that one!
I'm at the other end of the timeline - The Older Daughter starts kindergarten after Labor Day.
She's been my coworker for 2 1/2 years now. I'm not sure how it'll be without her.
We empty nested for a total of 6 months. The second child went off to college the first year of Covid. Both kids came back by that March for online learning. The first child still has not gone back to college. He is trying to what direction to go. He did return to work at the joint and is now serving and bartending to earn some money while he decides what to do. The second child is entering her final year at UMD and looks like she will apply at Northeastern in Charlotte for her Masters degree. I am dreading this. Having her 4 hours away is bearable as we go up quite often for a day or two to see her. Next year it will be a journey to visit her.
Oh, that sounds hard. Ours will be 2.5 hours of easy driving, thankfully.
CC to zooomx: stopped in for a walleye sandwich yesterday afternoon with Miss SBG. I probably should have said hey, but we were hurrying. Was really good as usual.
Dang... I was here, and probably should have bumped into you, but yesterday was a mess. 3 called in sick for the kitchen and my dishwasher was late. I was all over the place and frankly a bit burnt out from 5 long days in a row. Sorry I missed you boss!
I've always wondered how sean gets the CoC picture to match the topic of the day so well, but I don't ask because I want to keep believing at least part of it is magic.
Cosign. Sometimes it is in your face, but sometimes it is subtle.
He does great work.
Thank you, thank you. It truly is a team effort. That's why unpaid interns exist; so I get authorship.
So, we have a new furnace and a/c in our house now. Our old furnace was original to the house so it's 42 years old. The blower motor was last replaced when Younger Daughter was a baby, about 25 years ago. Every time I had a repairman out to fix something on it they'd tell me I had to get a new one because the heat exchanger was surely corroded and about to leak carbon monoxide any minute. I got a look at that heat exchanger today. Solid as a rock with only a couple of spots of surface rust that I was able to rub off with my finger. With a new motor that thing could have gone another ten years. That said, I'll sleep much better this winter not worrying if the furnace will break down when it's below zero and I expect to see some savings on the gas bill, especially after I replace the old patio door and blow some new insulation into the attic.
How baseball has changed: Cory mentions that the Rangers have the exact same starting lineup today as yesterday as if that was something really strange. And nowadays, I suppose it is.
vote Jodie Foster
Man... Werewolf... how long has it been.
Too.