Recipe #5: Pepperoni Pancakes

You start by offering breakfast to the 537 tweens and teens bivouacked in your abode. After they shrug, as if the effort to speak their thoughts aloud is too much for them, as if the arduous mechanics of sucking in air and expelling it in such a fashion that it may communicate something is beyond the scope of their hive-mind ennui, as if the words f a willing and competent chef are like the indulcent tones of a facks moh dehm, a 2oth century relic of low baud telephonic comm service--after that, feel free to interpret their collective disregard as "Please, sir, make us something truly and indelibly hideous!" Make them this:

1. Bisquick in the usual fashion.
2. Add sliced pepperoni.
3. Cook.

Serve with syrup and the option of a little red sauce.

In My Defense, I Did Conquer Tzichlitan With my Ninja Tanks. . .

A lot of people think video games are the latest agent of our progeny's demise and I am one of them. I can't think of a more ridiculous and possibly sinister leading indicator of imminent doom than kids who won't clean their room or feed their dog but never forget to flush the toilet or feed their goldfish on Sims. It scares the bejesus out of me and I strive to threaten my children with uninterrupted painful flogging if they spend more than 18 minutes a day playing video games.

I've also made some disparaging comments about some of the retired people I know who spend hours and hours playing video games. Bingo and solitary have been usurped by Zelda and online solitary.

To all of this I have thrown up my hands and shaken a sage and surly finger at all involved, saying they are squandering the precious few moments they have here on this little ball of dirt. Which makes me a pathetic a sad old hypocrite.

At about 1:30 in the afternoon this Saturday, I started playing a game. I just wanted to see what it was like. I'd seen the Roon slackjawed and dazed, playing this game for three hours at a stretch, which is pretty good even for him, and I wondered what was so compelling.

The game is called Civilizations/Revolution. The graphics are average. The length of gameplay is only a couple of hours. There are no car incendiary crashes or crimson head-shots. In the game, you choose to start a civilization, say the Roman Empire, from scratch and endeavor to take them from caveman to Cosmonaut ahead of all the other empires in the game. It. Is. Awesome.

I started just after lunch and a few minutes later, [My Attorney] called and asked what I fed the boys.

"Hot dogs."
"For dinner?"
"Dinner? No I just gave them hot dogs just now."
"Do you have any idea what time it is?"
"What? Uh, three?"
"It's eleven o'clock."

I had been playing this game for ten hours. TEN HOURS. I don't do anything for ten hours. I don't even sleep for ten hours. I looked around at my house, empty and dark, the dog crouched by the door with his legs crossed, the boys passed out on the couch under a protective blanket of spent Cheetos bags. I realized I was dehydrated, I was starving, and I'd been holding it for something like three hours straight because, dude, I needed to get the people of Pima to build one more Galleon so I could make a fleet and sink the new ships from Bismark, my enemy to the north.

I have never been so into a game in my life. Again, you have to understand, the graphics are sub par. But the manipulation of a tiny universe is brilliant! And it affects your world view. We started watching a movie which showed the 18th century workers of a dying factory and I instantly realised that if only there were more of them, that country could upgrade to the industrial era so, hey, it teaches history.

Late the next day the family wanted again to watch a movie and I was playing the game, my world dominating Egyptian empire having just discovered the Internet and on the brink of colonizing Alpha Centauri when the family G politely asked me to turn. Off. The. Game. I reacted ungraciously (I'm being diplomatic here) and my son started laughing. "Geeze, dad, you're acting just like me. You're addicted, dude!"

I'm so scared. I have two simultaneous deadlines, a huge complictaed ceremony, Bad Movie Night, and god knows what else due in the next two weeks but I am terrified that what's gonna happen is [My Attorney] is going to come home and find the kids emaciated and me surrounded by a nest of laundry and cold pizza looking like Uncle Fester and mumbling to myself: "I gotta research steam power. I got to build more legions. I got to get a submarine . . ."

Dill Pickle Juice Popsicles are Go!

Well, after much consideration and approval from R&D here at Death by Children, we've decided to unveil a new product: a weekly food article wherein I relate my efforts to feed my horde of hungry duplicates. This is always an effort because none of them get home at the same time, one of them eats by the bucketful, one of them is a vegequarian (veggies and fish only, please), and one of them is prone to soup.

Since I am an amateur chef (amateur in the sense that no one in their right mind would pay a bent nickle for anything I cook and chef in the sense that after scouring the Pennsyvania Dutch cookbook I inherited from my dad, I chose to adopt the recipe for candied bacon as my signature dish . . .) I don't mind cooking aggregate meals and I like to experiment.

Hence, my freezer is full of roasted acorn squash with a wild rice, sour cherries, and walnut filling, frozen for the vegequarian.And last night I threw down on some Merlot-Dijon glazed roasted pork with charred Italian potato wedges while still managing to fry up a quickie of garlic infused scallops with lemon and lime dipping sauce for the VQ. Yay me.

But what really sets me apart is the wild vive of my imagination when it comes to food and my willingness to freeze boldly where no man has froze before, ie: Dill Pickle Juice Popsicles.

I'm not going to lie to you, Dill Pickle Juice Popsicles are a treat best left to professionals or nine-year olds. They are weird, luminescent, super sour and taste like pickles. The moment you pop one in your mouth, your entire head decavitates and sucks your eyes into you skull and your tongue shrivels up and your cheeks reverse-Gillespsie until you look like a used pencil eraser with a green Christmas light stuck into it and you jerk the frozen vinegar pop out of your mouth and swear to all Gods high and holy that you will never, ever, under pain of discorporation, stick that thing in your mouth again. Then you do.

Because these Popsicles, bizarre as they are, are weirdly compelling. You simply can't stop. Try one. Here' the recipe:

1 popsicle making Tupperware thingy
1.5 cups pickle juice from a spent jar of dill pickles, room temp
.5 cups warm water

Fill the Tupperware thingy with the pickle juice so that it fills each receptacle about 3/4, then fill the rest with water to just under the rim. Put the sticks in and freeze. The warm water and room temp juice help the things freeze with more clarity and less air bubbles.

You talking to me?

The radio show is ready to go. Dave and I recorded our promos yesterday. You can click on them here:

Promo

Promo 2

Raised Right

On the way to school today, my kid put a Pandora playlist up. The Pixies floated out of the speakers, followed by Sonic Youth.

I looked over and there he was in his sasquatchian glory, eating his breakfast and bobbing his head to "Wave of Mutilation".

Mid marveling, he says to me, around a mouthful of bagel, I have a playlist that's just the Pixies, Pavement, Sonic Youth and early Radiohead. Totally my favorite."

I raised him right.

Quickie: The Joy of Being Semi Partially Famous

I go to the best Dentist in Chicago and he reads my blog cause he is afflicted with daughters and he's taking notes. So today he walks in and we shake but he won't let go. He's looking at me weirdly and peering over the top of my head and down my neck.

G: What are you looking for, Paul?
P: I'm looking for lice.

Ah, fame.