Memorial Day, Grilling, Oil, and the Media

Greetings from Little Rock, everyone. Here's hoping you all have fun activities planned for the upcoming extended weekend. I, along with several friends, will embark on a three day long float trip down the Buffalo River. This will be an exciting venture for me, as I have never been much of an outdoorsman.  However, I have girded my loins (whatever that means) with plenty of bug spray and sunscreen, and I shall battle the elements with great fervor.  I'll probably be the designated cook for the trip, so I've been tossing around some ideas for simple (yet flavorful) meals I can make using campground equipment and utensils. We'll be fishing, so seafood could be on the menu.  Cheese-stuffed brats and burgers would be doable as well.  

Memorial Day is the traditional start of the fabled "grilling season," a time when men everywhere rise from their La-Z-Boys, grab big bags of charcoal, pounds of meat, and a gimmicky apron and give their poor wives a break from cooking by firing up the grill.  Now I could be wrong, but I believe God intended all meats to be cooked over an open flame.  Quality grilled meals offer unbeatable flavor, texture, and an overall dining experience that can't be replicated in the kitchen.  Poorly grilled meals, however, have the texture and flavor of rawhide.  In light of this, allow me to offer a few tips to all the backyard chefs out there:

1. Heat control is everything. Too much heat and you'll be eating charcoal for dinner. Too little, and your food won't be done till next month. A grill thermometer is ideal for measuring temperature, but if you don't have one, use your hand.  Hold your hand, palm side down, over the top grate of the grill and count how long you can keep it there until it's too hot to stand. Two seconds means you've got "high" heat, 3-4 seconds is "medium-high," 4-5 seconds equates to "medium," and six or longer equals "low." Most grilled meats will be cooked over medium or medium high heat, so react accordingly. 
2. Beware of over-seasoning.  I'm a salt-and-pepper guy, so this might be a matter of personal taste.  It bugs me to no end when fine cuts of meat are subjected to 300 different seasonings, marinades, and other outside influences. You might as well eat the trimmings if you're going to cover the meat's flavor like that.  I prefer my meat (especially burgers) pre-seasoned with kosher salt, freshly ground pepper, and MAYBE a bit of garlic powder.  There are exceptions of course, but don't go overboard.  Let the meat speak for itself. 
3. Burger Rules - due to their popularity, I'm going to give burgers get their own little sub-section of rules.
1. Flip once. Cook the burgers over medium-high heat, four minutes per side and only flip them one time. That's all.  There's no need to rotate your poor patties into submission. You'll only release the juices inside the burger, and that's not a good thing (no matter what George Foreman says).
2. Don't mash. This is a cardinal, no-exceptions-allowed rule of burgering. Please, please, PLEASE don't mash the burgers while they're cooking. You will be left with dry, cotton-mouth-inducing lumps of meat. Yes, I know that every diner scene ever filmed contains a burger cook whose sole purpose is to squash the meat to produce that pretty 'sizzling' sound. Well, that sizzling sound is made by escaping fat.  Fat smashed out of the meat cannot flavor it when it's in your mouth.   So, you ask, how do I keep the patties from balling up while they're cooking?  Simple - when you are forming your patties, flatten them out and stick your thumb in the very middle, leaving an indention.  This indention will expand back out while you're cooking. By the time the burgers are done, the patty should be in roughly the same shape it was when you formed it - nice and flat. They'll be juicy and delicious as well. 
3. Melt the cheese. We've all had a fast food burger that was hastily thrown together without giving the cheese time to melt. Not good. Be sure to let the cheese get nice and gooey before pulling from the grill. I like to top my burgers with cheese about a minute after I flip them. This gives the cheese just enough time to melt nicely.  Freshly shredded cheese will always melt more cleanly than sliced cheese will, so use it if you have access. 
4. Let it set. Resist the temptation to dive directly into your cooked meat as soon as it comes off the grill. Instead, pull the meat off the grill, lightly cover it with aluminum foil and allow the meat to set for five minutes.  This gives all those flavorful juices you've worked so hard to keep inside the meat time to redistribute and settle down.  If you cut right in as soon as the meat comes off the grill, they're just going to spill out all over your plate. The meat will still be plenty hot in five minutes, so be patient. Use the time to throw together a nice salad or put ice in the glasses.  

Wow, that was a bit long-winded.  Grilling is great fun and will always produce delicious food as long as the cook is skilled. Hopefully these tips will help.  I'll be back later this week with an easy burger recipe. 


Is it just me, or is anyone else fed up with the media's treatment of the BP oil spill?  Give me a break, guys. I suppose that, in this day and time, I should expect everything to be politicized.  The American public has been trained (brainwashed?) to automatically take a partisan side on every single news item or event that comes down the pipe.  Media types latch onto this and treat every story as though it were a cut-and-dry conflict with good guys and bad guys.  This is simply not the case, especially with this disaster. Is it a big deal? Absolutely.  The ecosystems of the Gulf coast are fragile enough as they are, and it will likely take years for them to recover from the oil spill. But at some point, we all have to accept this ordeal for what it really is - a worst-case scenario come to life. There is not a "bad guy" in this situation.  BP has smarter people than  you and I working around the clock on a solution.  They've called in all the help they can from rival oil companies as well.  They are not "dragging their feet" or slacking around while billions of gallons of oil spew into the gulf. It takes time, resources, and luck to plug a hole that is 5,000 feet under water. The saddest part for me is that our president was so quick to jump on the BP-bashing bandwagon.  I have heard the Obama administration tell us that they would "keep a boot to the throat" of BP until this situation was resolved.  Is that kind of imagery really necessary?  Why not tell us that they will "curb stomp BP into submission" or ""hold a gun to BP's head" until they fix the leak?  It's political posturing and finger-pointing, and it makes me sick. Sadly, in today's political climate, it's become necessary. 


Happy Memorial Day weekend everyone....take a little time to remember the guys and gals who died so we could have the day off work.  Be safe!

Lemon-Blueberry Bread

Time for a throwback recipe blog!  I made some lemon-blueberry bread for small group last night. It was wonderful.  Each bite was full of bright, summery flavors and just the right amount of citrus-y tang.  I made some white chocolate-cranberry oatmeal cookies as well, but that recipe stays between me and mom.  Here's the recipe for the bread:

Lemon-Blueberry Bread

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cu AP flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 6 tbsp butter, softened
• 3/4 cu sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 cu evaporated milk
• 1 tbsp grated lemon zest ( 2-3 medium lemons)
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 Cu fresh blueberries
• Lemon Glaze
• 2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
• 1/4 cu sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Weigh out 1 1/2 cups flour (6.75 oz) and sift into a small bowl with salt and baking powder. In an electric mixer, cream together butter and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, allowing each egg mix completely before adding the next. Add lemon zest and vanilla extract and mix well. Add flour mixture and milk alternatively, starting and ending with flour. Toss blueberries in flour, dust off, and fold into batter.  Butter and flour an 8.5x 4.5 in. loaf pan. Bake at 350 degrees until internal temperature reaches 195 degrees, about 50 minutes. A toothpick inserted in the middle should come out clean. Set bread, still in pan, on a cooling rack to cool. Combine ingredients for lemon glaze in a small saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring constantly until sugar is dissolved.  Poke multiple holes in the top of the bread with a toothpick or skewer and pour warm lemon glaze over bread. Allow to cool for 20 minutes, turn out bread onto cooling rack, and allow to cool completely. Serve as is, or topped with warm blueberry syrup.

Not to change the mood or anything, but I honestly wonder about this world sometimes. Last night at small group, we talked a bit about a girl who was attacked and nearly kidnapped at random. A man knocked on her door, claiming to have found a dog and asking if she could identify it. She opened the door and he attacked her, breaking her jaw and causing various other injuries. He handcuffed and, after rummaging through her apartment, dragged her to his car, threatening to kill her if she screamed. She did anyways, alerting the neighbors.  Her attacker dropped her and fled. Fortunately, this creep was apprehended and is in police custody.  I really can't fathom the kind of evil that must exist in a man's head to make him want to carry out this kind of attack. I wrote a couple of weeks ago that the enemy is strong in this world. Events like this remind me how strong the enemy really is. And honestly, I have trouble understanding why God allows these kinds of things to happen. There has to be a line somewhere, right?  This man was caught, but how many escape to harm again?  Our world honestly seems to be degrading to a historic moral low, and I wonder how long God's justice will be contained for this kind of evil. This is a tough subject for me. Am I the only one?

The Man Who Saved the World

If I walked up to a hundred different people and asked them to identify Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov, I'd probably get a hundred different quizzical looks followed by a hundred different versions of "I dunno." And if I'm being honest, my reaction to the same question would have been identical until a week ago. Mr. Arkhipov's story seems to have been largely lost to history. That's too bad.  Truth is, were it not for the bold actions of this anonymous Russian, there's a very good chance that none of us would be here today.

Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov was born, best we can tell, on January 30, 1926.  He grew up in a time filled with more political and social unrest than most of us could imagine. The Bolshevik party had overthrown the royal family nine years earlier, and the newly formed Soviet Union was fast becoming a world power. Tensions were simmering with Japan in the east and Germany in the west. Arkhipov, like many Russian youths, aspired to fight for his country and enrolled in naval school.  He served in the war against Japan as a minesweeper and moved up through the ranks, reaching the rank of deputy commander (second-in-command) of a rather infamous Soviet sub, the Hotel class K-19 (Google if you're curious).  After the K-19 incident, Arkhipov was transferred to the Foxtrot class submarine B-59 (also nuclear equipped).

Allow me to set the stage at this point:  The year is now 1962.  The Cold War is at its frigid height, and relations between the United States and the Soviet Union are at all-time lows. Cuba's government has recently been overthrown by a Communist regime, and the Russians have outfitted the island with nuclear missiles capable of striking any place in North America.  America's failure in the recent Bay of Pigs invasion has emboldened the Russians even further.  Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev has no respect for John F. Kennedy, considering him to be, in his own words, "too young, intellectual, not prepared well for decision making in crisis situations ... too intelligent and too weak."  Operations have already commenced on both sides in preparation for war. Two American U-2 recon planes have been shot down over Cuba and Siberia, and American and Russian fighters have engaged in various skirmishes. To make a long situation short, both countries are armed to the teeth with enough nuclear power to resurrect the Stone Age, and both have itchy trigger fingers.

Amidst all this, on October 17, 1962, eleven American destroyers and an aircraft carrier corner the previously mentioned Soviet submarine B-59 off the coast of Cuba.  The American ships, unaware of the nature of the B-59's cargo, surrounded her and began dropping practice depth charges in an attempt to make her surface.   Unfortunately, the crew of the B-59 didn't know this.  They only knew that explosions were going off all around them.  Temperatures on board the B-59 rose to above 120 degrees, alarms sounded, and panic ensued.  Captain Valentin Grigorievitch Savitsky assumed that war had begun and gave the order to prepare return fire - with nuclear-tipped weapons.

Now, despite what Cold War propagandists from this country might have you believe, the Russians were actually capable of reason and restraint.  Since firing a nuclear missile was kind of a big deal, doing so required the unanimous approval of the three highest ranking officials onboard the sub.  And so, a meeting was held. As we know, Captain Savitsky was ready to fire. The political officer, Ivan Semonovich Maslennikov, gave his approval as well.  All that was needed was the approval of the deputy commander - Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov. Arkhipov's actions in this situation are so unbelievable, so incredible, that one would be hard-pressed to attribute them to anything other than the hand of God himself. Vasili Arkhipov, the third-in-command, defied his superiors and refused to approve the launch of nuclear weapons. He pointed out to his superiors that the conditions for nuclear strike, a rupture of the sub's hull, had not yet occurred . Instead, he insisted that they surface the sub and wait for further orders from Moscow.  After a lengthy argument, Arkhipov was able to calm his superiors and the sub surfaced without attacking.

Stop for a moment and consider the magnitude of Arkhipov's actions.  This man single-handedly prevented a full-scale nuclear war.  Had Arkhipov agreed with his superiors and authorized the launch, the United States would have retaliated with a far greater return strike.  The Soviets would have then responded with more nuclear force, and tens of millions of Americans and Russians would have needlessly died.  Anything that survived the initial explosions would have probably died off due to radiation.  Yet, in the face of incredible adversity and stress, Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov kept a level head.  He literally saved the world. Thankfully, the United States and Russia quickly realized the potential disaster that had been averted and acted accordingly. The Russians removed their nukes from Cuba (ending the Cuban Missile Crisis), and the United States took down nuclear missles they had stationed in Turkey (we weren't innocent either).  

The intensity and drama of the Cold War era is long gone now.   Russia and the United States are on much better terms, and nuclear weaponry is down considerably from its height in the 60s and 70s.  We survived the Cold War unscathed.  Politicians, presidents, and premiers deserve some of the credit.  But perhaps the most credit of all is due to a man who defied fear, his superiors, and his peers and kept his cool under pressure.  Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov stood between us and nuclear war. I'm glad he didn't move.