This is actually the last photograph.
Obviously the bread is started first.
1/2 cup milk scalded (destroys glutathione that makes dough soft)
1 cup warm water
1 teaspoon yeast
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
The steak is frozen. It's hanging out softening a bit. And the whole time I was cutting it I kept forgetting it's frozen, although my left hand was very cold, and I kept thinking, "Boy, this thing sure is hard to cut. Oh yeah, it's frozen."
The dough stretched out to be a long roll. I did this wrong. I took the dough ball and rolled it back and forth while stretching it out. That pulled and tore at the skin. You can see how damaged the skin is. I didn't stretch it as flattened dough and fold it and pinch it to produce a new taught skin. The next time I do this I'll be conscious of producing a good tight unbroken skin for its newly stretched form. Plus it would trap more air.
But I was really tired.
I watched a lot of videos about how Philadelphia cheesesteak sandwiches are made. The people running these businesses are helpful and open, actually talkative, about every element of each step. You'll know that someone knows what they're talking about when they emphasize the bread coming from the Italian community of great bakers already in Philadelphia. The good ones recognize the real thing is produced on a massive seasoned grill and the meat is processed further as it is cooking. They note that the meat changes color, only just, then removed. No searing. No Maillard reaction. Cooked moderately and briefly to hold all the liquid.
Then they blow it with Cheez Whiz.
They like the way the cheese gets all into the meat.
While steak sandwich connoisseurs stick with traditional cheese. Come on! You can make a sauce out of any cheese. The cheese that I used is so strong that it overtakes the steak and that's tragic. It could use some serious diluting.
These two guys know what they're talking about. The first one is fly-by at 30,000 feet but he does swoop down on the salient elements missed in other videos. He shows it twice. The second guy is s-o-o-o sincere. He acknowledges the history of the thing, the intermingling of cultures. He handles two British bloggers with tremendous delicacy. They are bragging about making the best Philly in the whole world after having eaten the worst.
Triggered.
I love travelers to America who do one sweep of a few states and fancy themselves top experts on all things American. "Well, I went there for two weeks so I pretty much saw everything. They sure do love their flags."
That kills me.
When you get back to England have a look around at all the flags all over the place. They stab your eyeballs.
Your eyes are trained to see your flag as a lovely heartwarming thing. Your country and its flag came over here in ships to kick our asses twice. Burned down our capitol in fact. While my own relative settled in Canada instead of the United States so that she could "die under the British flag."
She wanted to die under the flag of the nation so unhelpful she was leaving it. That was the key to her decision.
She died under a flag featuring a tree leaf.
But her point was taken.
Her three children never married. They lived together. They lived very long, like nineties, and died within a few years of each other. They left my dad over a million dollars. They left everything to my dad.
But that was Canadian dollars and it turned out to be about ¢14 in American currency.
Kidding!
I asked my mother why they did that. They seemed to be not that interesting of people. The three lived meager lives. They didn't travel. They didn't spend anything. They saved pretty much all their money. Dad talked about them always glowingly. He liked them a lot and he liked their whole town. Hamilton Ontario. He lived with them back and forth as he grew up in Bethlehem Pennsylvania. Dad had two sisters alive at the time. Why were they both shut out now? Mom told me, "Your dad was the only person who visited them. They had a relationship with your dad but not with your dad's sisters."
My dad didn't spend it. He didn't change anything. It had no noticeable affect. Oddly, he lived much like they did. Near the end of his life I handled all his finances. He gave me the whole pile(s). I saw all his papers. I organized them. He lived like he was still struggling raising a family. He was locked in his own early-life mode. It was the weirdest thing, cashing a check for a small amount of cash over and over and over each week habitually for years. Why not just do that once a month with a large amount? I had all the checks showing the pattern. Then he died a few years later. So did my mom. I inherited 1/5 of my parent's things. The Canadian savings was in there.
Your tree-leaf flag is lovely but your British flag is not. It's pointy and jagged and harsh. It represents colonization and lack of representation. To me, your flag means careless sanctimonious viciousness. Honestly, it's the worst of all of the flags. You make a fuss about it being displayed backwards and I can't even see much of a difference.
Whereas my flag represents freedom and goodness and light.
My lovely flag also represents the only country that ever dropped an atom bomb on another country, so don't you forget it.
Your traveler got hold of the wrong sandwich and took that to represent all Philadelphia sandwiches and produced something worse than the real thing while believing it so superior that it's the best in the whole world while everyone who has had the real thing knows what a couple of dopes you two dudes are. Jesus Christ. Does that come from growing up on an island and not getting out that often? Or does it come from the conceit that grows within a global empire shrunken to a national hospital?
Hard to tell.
Could be something else. Boys get excited about the strangest things.
My sandwich is delicious. I have over 50% of the meat and onions left.
My bread can be improved easily by forming the long rolls with more finesse and not tearing the skin.
My mixture could have less onions.
My cheese is way too strong.
Slice but don't dice the meat when it's frozen.
I ate half of this sandwich. The big half. The other half was wasted because I conked out. And I still have a whole pile of the steak and onions and two poorly formed rolls.
No comments:
Post a Comment