Newsletter Mode….Turkey pastrami

I am 80% finished with the August 2010 Lee County Shrine Club newsletter. I have all of this stuff floating in my head and trying to determine how I will get what is left squeezed in. A lot of writing is editing and a lot of editing is cutting down on the extra fluff and repetitiveness that slips from your fingertips. Plus I had a few extra projects to knock out this week. One was the meat sale tickets for our Shrine Club. We will be cranking up the ole cooker again and selling Boston butts, ribs and briskets for Labor Day. I generated an order form with individual order numbers to keep things straight, but I bet there will still be a level of frustration present.

My article this month is something I had in my head for a couple of months. Since I didn’t produce a full newsletter last month I had to save it for August. It is one of those Shriner Hospital success stories but very sad as well. I got permission from the parents to run the article and they even sent me a photo to use. This sweet girl had a lot of medical problems but at least the Shriners Hospital for Children in Shreveport was able to make some improvement in her life. We lost her at the age of ten, but she will forever be remembered. I plan to post this article in this blog after I complete the newsletter.

I have been tied up with various projects and a trip to Cincinnati with a Shrine patient. I took another driver with me from the Pontotoc Shrine Club so he would be able to make more trips giving us more trained drivers to rely on. I handled our local transportation program while our chairman was in Toronto at the Imperial Shrine Session. That is a full time job. Many of our members and even leaders take these dedicated drivers for granted and the importance of what they give to our philanthropy is trivialized. I am thinking of a way to elevate the level of awareness of our transportation program and volunteer drivers.

I am back to reading. I recently read Anthony Bourdain’s latest “Medium Raw.” It was a follow up book to his popular “No Reservations.” I enjoyed this book as much as I enjoyed “No Reservations.” In spite of his past and his strong opinions Bourdain can write. I would recommend Bourdain to any “foodie” that likes read.

Another good book for any “foodie” is “Heat” by Bill Buford. I found this book in the bargain book section of a book store. It was actually a library book from Ontario, Canada.

The full title for this book is “Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany.” After some on-line searching I have found where “Heat” has already been optioned for a movie. Mario Batali has said he wants Philip Seymour Hoffman to play him in the movie. Maybe it will make it and maybe not. I did enjoy the book and found some if the details of happenings in a three star kitchen to be revealing. One character mentioned in Bourdain’s book was also a subject in “Heat.” Both of these books give a good insight to the world of high class New York restaurants and the inside world of food. I do like Bourdain’s attitude towards fast food and his acknowledgement of needing to straighten his life out when he became a father. I am also glad I picked up the bargain book to read following Bourdain's latest.

While I am on the subject of food, I have enjoyed the new web page Food Network Humor. http://www.foodnetworkhumor.com/
These gals also have a free podcast and have a good time laughing it up at the expense of Food Network celebrities. They are also on Facebook and Twitter. Some of the stuff they post does make sense.

I am currently reading the new Daniel Silva book “The Rembrandt Affair” but I haven’t gotten enough into it to give any type of review comment. I expect it to be good based on his books in the past. I have enjoyed all of his previous work. Daniel Silva has become one of my favorite authors and I have been waiting for this new novel to come out. Waiting for the bargain rack won't do in this case, it was off to the book store on the release date for this one. I will admit I used the coupon Barnes & Noble e-mailed me for the purchase. So far what little I read from his latest work is right on track.

While on the subject of books, my wife and I paid a little visit to the Goodwill bookstore on McCullough Boulevard in Tupelo. It was pretty neat. It had a lot of decent books along with the normal stuff you would expect from donations. Some neat cookbooks to boot. The store was clean and well organized. We donated a few boxes of stuff to Goodwill and the guy was out to the car and had us unloaded in seconds. Goodwill has really stepped up their game. The people working at donation drop-offs have ten seconds to get to your vehicle. My wife has a friend that is the manager of the Corinth Goodwill store and this company is doing things to make them a major player in the retail market, all with donated goods. This bookstore is a pretty good place for a person that likes books.

Our dog has been driving us crazy; she has been sick again and spent another costly week at the vet. We already have to give her Phenobarbital for seizures and now she has to be on stomach medicine for her irritable bowel disorder. She is much better now because she has gone back to being annoying and spoiled rotten.

I do have one rant to express. We bought some sandwich meat at the grocery store, turkey pastrami. It’s not bad and low fat. I noticed the container was empty, my wife having finished it off, so I went to remove the label and dispose of the container. I like to save these plastic containers but when I am not looking my wife will slip them in the recycle bin. I noticed the label that they stick to the lid had “recipe idea on back” listed on it. Cool, I like recipes and wondered what they had cooked up to make with turkey pastrami. The recipe was for a turkey pastrami sandwich.
What?
Well duh? Who would have ever thought to make a sandwich with deli sliced sandwich meat? Have you ever needed a recipe to make a sandwich? I told my wife I was going to e-mail them and ask if they thought consumers were so stupid we needed a recipe to make a sandwich with sandwich meat. The recipe even lists to use two slices of bread. Damn, glad they clued us in on that. Maybe this time I won’t get mustard all over my hands. Two slices, who would of thought? You think someone stuck their head in the door of the marketing department on a Friday afternoon and said, “You guys get a recipe sent over to labeling for the turkey pastrami and you’re done for the day.” Poof, recipe done, sees ya Monday. Maybe I should e-mail them and ask about the recipe. Stating I am confused because they listed “dill pickles, sliced” in their recipe but they didn’t specify if it should be the crinkle cut pickles or the straight cut ones. Wait, could they mean the “sandwich” sliced pickles? It says to use two ounces of the sliced dill pickles, now I have to go out and buy a scale just to make a sandwich. Plus the recipe calls for three ounces of turkey pastrami per sandwich and there is only eight ounces in the package. So I either have to waste two ounces of meat after two sandwiches or I have to buy a total of three packages of deli sliced meat to make it even out. How in the heck am I supposed to eat eight turkey pastrami sandwiches? Wonder how they would respond to a lawsuit for mental anguish because of their recipe? Probably the same way most folks respond to my craziness. By the way I am keeping this recipe, you never know.