Uncategorized

The Melon Meets Mercury

60 Comments

There’s a lot of excitement about new photos from the hot planet Mercury, and the news drew a response from an old friend in the enhanced food business – Dr. Larry Kyle of Genway, the supermarket for genetically engineered foods.

Greetings, virtual space travelers!

I’ve been waiting over six years for the Messenger spacecraft to arrive at Mercury, thinking all the while about the ways we can take parts of our natural world and blend them with equally natural parts of other worlds!

Yes, I work in a grocery store, but why should I let that limit my thinking? We can draw inspiration from anywhere, and the universe is full of useful ideas if only we will allow ourselves to dream and not be deterred by nagging questions like “why”?

Look at this amazing photo that was taken just two days ago!

A rare close up of the planet Mercury orbiting an angry sun?

Good guess, but No! It’s Genway’s new EXTREME Cantaloupe!

The cantaloupe is a wonderful melon – golden like squash but sweet like candy, it’s easy to love and fun to eat. But so limited! After you cut it open, scoop out the seeds and cut it into slices or chunks, there’s little left you can do with a cantaloupe except make a cold soup. And I hate cold soup!

Inspired by the Messenger mission, I decided to create a craggy bit of spherical produce that was up to the rigors of outer space, particularly the type of scorching heat and intense cold endured by Mercury in its slow rotation so close to our intense and merciless sun.

I combined normal cantaloupe DNA with genes taken from deep-sea creatures that live near boiling steam vents in the intense cold of the lower depths of our vast oceans. The result? A sturdy fruit with a tough outer shell that that can be tossed in the freezer or the bonfire, with delicious results!

Finally, an easy way to make HOT cantaloupe soup. Here’s how:

Ingredients:

1 Genway EXTREME Cantaloupe
1 sprig of mint

Tools:
1 pair Welder’s Goggles
1 Industrial Blast Furnace
1 pair Insulated Tongs
1 Impervious Robot with Remote Drilling Capability

Take the EXTREME cantaloupe, and using welder’s goggles to protect your eyes from the glare, open the door to the raging blast furnace and toss in the fruit.

Leave it in there for ten full minutes, or until the rugged surface of the melon appears hopelessly charred and totally unable to support life as we know it.

Using insulated tongs, remove the EXTREME cantaloupe and set it on an insulated, ceramic surface.

Making sure that you are more than 20 feet away from the EXTREME cantaloupe, instruct your Impervious Robot to drill a hole in the rugged crust. A jet of sweet, superheated steam will erupt, filling the room with a golden warmth that may also fuse exposed parts of your robot together into a single, useless mass.

If the robot is still operational, have it pour the bright golden molten contents of the EXTREME cantaloupe into an asbestos bowl.

Periodically touch the surface of the soup until it does not raise blisters on your skin.

Toss on the sprig of fresh mint, and Enjoy!

On the drawing board – Saturn Squash, surrounded by rings of butter!

Share a recipe or a story about food that is Too Much Trouble to make.

60 thoughts on “The Melon Meets Mercury”

      1. Dale, that image of the cantaloupe in space is exactly what I’ve been looking for to grace the cover of my ebook (It’s called “How to Be a Vegan in a Meat Eater’s World”). Any chance I would be able to use this image on my cover or purchase it? I understand if you don’t do that, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to ask. Here’s the link to the book: http://www.amazon.com/How-Vegan-Meat-Eaters-World-ebook/dp/B00ZPPK3CU/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1436402941&sr=8-2&keywords=how+to+be+a+vegan

        Thank you for your time and consideration,
        Mary

        Like

        Reply

  2. My mother is not an adventuresome eater/cook. Growing up they only had 7 meals, so you could tell what night of the week it was by what was on the dinner table. As a result, I did not learn to cook from my mother either.

    So as a young married and a vegetarian, I went out and bought a handful of vegetarian cookbooks and started to teach myself. My spouse and I would look at some of the recipes and decide together what we wanted for the week and then do the shopping. I don’t remember what seemed appealing about the squash casserole, but we chose that dish, bought the squash, the cheese and all the other veggies.

    With my limited culinary background, I had never cooked squash before, or even known anyone who had cooked squash before. I pulled out my brand new Joy of Cooking and it listed two methods: cutting it in half, baking it, scrapping the squash out of the rind or cutting up the squash and boiling it. Knowing nothing about squash, the second method seemed much easier to me, so I cut it up and boiled it. It seemed a little soggy but not knowing any better, I added all the other ingredients and served it up. “Awful” doesn’t begin to describe it. If you’ve never tasted boiled squash (and I hope you haven’t), imagine a chunk of really really old bread soaked in water. Ick. The casserole was inedible.

    Of course, as if this isn’t funny enough, it gets better. My husband was an extremely …. shall we say frugal… young man and he couldn’t bear the idea of all the other veggies and cheese in the casserole going to waste. He scrapped the whole casserole into our colander, put the colander in the sink and proceeded to squish the squash out. (I have a picture of this as evidence.) To his credit, he did eventually eat all of the leftovers, but I couldn’t bring myself to eat more than a bite or two.

    Suffice it to say, we never made that recipe again and I never boiled squash again either!

    Like

    Reply

    1. Might be. We are still waiting for your price chart with the PREMIUM level defined and rated! Until then I will not pay for the story of what occurred in Molly Whatshername’s bathroom.

      Like

      Reply

  4. the recipe that comes to mind is “Baum Torte or Kuchen” which i made once in the early 80s from a recipe in Sphere (i think) magazine. a crepe batter thinly painted into a springform pan, broiled for a minute or so, then a layer of apricot jelly, then a layer of crushed, toasted hazelnuts and then another layer of crepe batter to broil – do this 14 to 16 times. take the cake out of the pan and drench it with dark chocolate ganache. when cut, it looks like the growth layers of a tree and it tastes divine. but it took me the better part of a day to make. probably never again.

    want the squash casserole story, VS!!!

    Like

    Reply

  5. There’s a James Beard recipe for chicken slow cooked with 40 cloves of garlic. It’s putzy but not terriblly hard. The only time I made it, the problem began while my dinner guests were eating. I left the pan with the garlicky butter in the hitchen. The cat jumped on the counter and licked it clean. She then groomed herself and turned into cat reeking of 40 cloves of garlic. There was no way to eliminate the smell and it lasted for more than a week.
    Wishing everyone on the Trail a non-odiferous day!

    Like

    Reply

  6. I’ve researched the process thoroughly, and I don’t think I will ever attempt to make phyllo dough from scratch. The whole idea of stretching dough evenly to that paper thinness from a ball of dough in the middle of the table to the outer edges of said table just seems rife with error to me.

    I’m game to try most things once, but not that (well, maybe, someday, when I have a lot more time on my hands……..)

    Like

    Reply

    1. this (Potica recipe) would be the next challenge after phyllo then, MIG
      http://www.rangenet.com/recipe/index.php?RECIPE=26

      no pictures, but i’ve seen the stretching process – a woman doing on tv for Julie Kellner’s show one year on WDSE/WRPT – simply amazing.

      a gracious good morning to You All
      i’m off to babysit for the first time in 50 years – for a La Leche League meeting near Blackhoof – should be interesting and scary. hope we have nap time. and graham crackers.

      Like

      Reply

      1. biB: I have a friend who makes this! She is a fabulous cook, but it does appear to be really intense. It is delicious.
        If you are babysitting for LaLeche League you may find at your age, you are missing two critical elements of baby feeding. Perhaps you should take a mama goat with you to fill in that function.

        Like

        Reply

      2. i guess i’m the grandma figure (or great grandma, probably) and luckily the main feeding components will be at the meeting and accessible, we would guess.
        a friend once sent me a picture (very old) of a child nursing from a doe (cut out the middleman). i guess i’ll leave my Girls home.
        the twins are way too wild right now anyway. they are at what Steve calls the “popcorn” stage. just jumping up and down. no movement is slow – just spastic wildness in there. such fun.

        Like

        Reply

    2. I don’t think I’m allowed near even commercially prepared phyllo dough after the disaster that was my pal Andrea and I attempting to make baklava. We had good instructions, tips from a friend who made baklava all the time, and we still wound up with phyllo that separated in clumps rather than fine layers…pastry dough of any variety and I just aren’t a good combination (see also: Anna Attempts a Homemade Pie Crust and Gets Basketball Covering Instead).

      Like

      Reply

      1. I can just manage pie crust (and just can’t see myself paying what they ask for it pre-done), but that is what leads me to say no to phyllo (and I do like my spanikopita, so will spring for that box, the box and I get along nicely).

        barb, I have eaten wonderful homemade potica made by women who were college girls at the time-they had learned from their grandmother. I am convinced that that is the only way to learn it (my grandmother bequeathed me banana bread and stollen, I cannot complain).

        Like

        Reply

  7. Rise and Shine Baboons:

    There are lots of things that are delicious yet too much trouble. Caramel rolls–very putsy, but I make them about once a year for a family gathering of any sort. Several years ago at Christmas I made a batch to take to the family gathering. I put them in one of those black, disposable pans that can be reheated safely, then froze them ahead of the date.

    I took the beauties to the Christmas gathering, complete with caramel, raisins and walnuts tucked into the rolls with butter and cinnamon. In the morning I turned on his oven to heat, then set the pan onto the shelf. Several minutes later my brother was running across the room armed with a fire extinguisher. He opened the oven out of which flames were exiting and blew away my Caramel Rolls with extinguisher fluid.

    Everyone’s hearts and taste buds were broken. I did not know the oven did not gauge heat correctly, nor that the heating element was on the bottom. The overheated element set the pan on fire. I’ve never again used one of those black, plastic “reheatable” pans. He had to buy a new oven, which was needed anyway. He and his wife have since allowed me back in the house. He also allowed me to teach his daughter how to make risotto and pie.

    He is a good brother.

    Like

    Reply

      2. Agreed. While I have been witness to a torched oven and even a melted electric fry pan (different occasions), I was not responsible for either disaster!

        Like

        Reply

      4. Thank you very much. It was a peak?–maybe nadir– experience in my cooking career, which has been long and varied. I had never set anything on fire before, with the exception of the barbecue, which was intended.

        Like

        Reply

  8. I fear I already shared (and did not get paid for) my favorite cooking disaster: a dish I invented that came to be known as “Lethal Chicken.” Put chicken pieces in an electric skillet, pour half a bottle of Wesson Oil over that, turn the dial on the handle to 200 degrees and don’t lift the lid for eight hours. By that time, the chicken will have absorbed ALL of the oil. This is best served with Alka Seltzer.

    Like

    Reply

  9. Good morning to all:

    The family holiday meals on Thanksgiving and Christmas have always been way too much work. When these gatherings included our parents and our children they were incredibly difficult because there were separate dishes for the meat eaters and the vegetarians. My wife and I are now the only meat eaters at these meals and we like vegetarian food so we don’t make the meat dishes any more. We still have to come up with a special vegetarian main dish which can be a little more work that cooking a meat dish.

    The meal, without the meat dishes, is still way too much work. I would gladly simplfy the meal, but having a big selection of holiday dishes and too much food is expected by the rest of the faimly. Apart from the main dish, vegetarian stuffing and gravy is necessary along with mashed potatoes, a cooked vegetable, a salad, and home made bread. We have to have too kinds of cranberry sauce to keep everybody happy. Then, of course, at least one kind of home made pie or maybe two kinds.

    This meal has become a little easier lately because our daughters like cooking and they might take care doing the home made bread and the pies. Also, we now have a selection of several vegetarian main dishes that we have perfected which include lasagne, quiche, and lentil loaf. Still, I think all of the work put into making and cleaning up after these meals is just too much, but I think I seem to be the only one in favor of a simplified meal for these ocaisions.

    Like

    Reply

  10. A Christmas dessert- Yule Log, aka Buche de Noel (even the name is difficult). I used to be quite ambitious in the kitchen (decades ago) so one year for our annual family Christmas dinner I decided to go the whole nine yards and make this cake that looks like something you’d toss onto the campfire on a chilly night.

    First task, make the cake in a jellyroll pan (have I lost most of you already?). Then make the filling (frosting) that goes onto the cake. Roll the cake up into a log shape (that’s the fun part, because, as we all know, a 15x10x1-inch cake with frosting on it is SO pliable and EASY to roll into a tight little log).

    Assuming that task came off without a hitch, you are now ready to apply the bark to the log. Translation: the outer layer of frosting. It’s not enough to slather it on like a normal cake; the trick is to make that frosting actually look like tree bark. Most folks tend to go for your smoother-barked trees such as a young maple, but not me. I went for a scraggly old cottonwood, with deep roughly parallel grooves.

    Now it’s time for the branches. Mini-pieces of jelly roll cake that you’ve presumably saved from your trimming of the original cake. Actually, it’s much easier to show where branches used to be by creating the look of a sawed-off branch only sticking out an inch or so. Two or three of these are enough. Some artistes go so far as to use real branches (twigs actually), which they stick into the cake. This can work well for coniferous trees, adding a nice green color and texture–and aroma if you use fresh pine boughs.

    Once the branches are stuck on and painted/frosted you’re getting close, but …

    Oh, by the way, if you go with the sawed off branch theme, you of course have to have lighter-colored icing to put on the stump. A tan or caramel color, vs. the chocolate brown of the bark. And adding twenty or thirty age rings on that sawed-off area adds a nice touch of realism, too. 🙂

    Now you look at the Yule Log and think, “That looks pretty good, but something’s missing. … Ah ha! I’ve got it! MUSHROOMS! So you whip up a batch of meringue mushrooms, let them cool, and place them in strategic locations on the log. Suffice it to say, there are more mushroom shapes than tree bark varieties, so unless you have some real meringue-sculpting talent, I suggest sticking with garden-variety button mushrooms. Crank out five or six of those–vary the sizes, of course– and stick those onto the log. Some purists insist on one per serving. I worry more about the visual effect. Is my muse telling me this is a recently downed tree, meaning only a few mushrooms will have taken root? Or has this sucker been dead for decades, and if not for those freakin’ age rings, no one in their right mind would suspect it’s a log.

    But those mushrooms usually look starkly white against the brown frosting of the bark, which is not natural, so you decide the mushrooms need a touch of dirt on them. Not real dirt of course, but cocoa powder lightly dusted over them. Et Voila, right?

    Well-l-l-l, not quite. It’s Christmas after all, so you need to ‘garnish’ your masterpiece. Get some holly leaves and berries, maybe a few pine sprigs, and nestle those around the edges in a artistic montage of winter’s struggle to defeat beauty and color and the pine and holly berry’s ultimate prevailing over Ol’ Man Winter.

    Presuming you had the foresight to begin this odyssey at least 24 hours before the E.T.E.D. (Estimated Time for Eating Dessert), You’ve got just enough time to proudly present this culinary Taj Mahal to your guests. They ooh and ah politely, at which point one of the inevitable Terrible Two Toddlers, who always seem to be present at family gatherings, spies your creation, says, “MINE!” and proceeds to plunge his grubbly little fist into the cake up to his wrist.

    You choke back bile and venom as you maintain your composure, but are thinking to yourself, “So this is what goes through a serial killer’s mind just before he fires up his chainsaw!” Of course the little tykes mom apologizes profusely, and you shrug it off, saying “He and the other little darlings can have that section. Us grownups will enjoy the three inches of cake that doesn’t have toxic two year old germs and spittle all over it.”

    You slice up what’s left of the cake and serve. Everyone wolfs it down in 30 seconds and makes comments such as, “That was pretty good, Chris, tastes kind of like a Ding Dong. Whatdja call it again, a Euell Gibbons Log?”

    You say, “It’s just ‘Yule Log,'” and smile graciously as everyone makes sure to thank you, mainly for showing up so they can talk to someone else besides their boorish spouses. Your last thought before cracking open the bottle of Late Bottle Vintage Port that you plan to drink all by yourself tonight is, “Next year, I’m bringing the salad!”

    Chris in Owatonna

    Like

    Reply

    3. Think I’m glad the one time I attempted a rolled cake (which, I admit, I had to cheat, and use a deep cookie pan to bake instead of a proper jellyroll pan), I made it for Mother’s Day and could garnish with a few edible flowers and be done. It seemed to amuse the friend I ran into at Bachman’s (single “n”) when I told him I was buying violas for a cake…

      Like

      Reply

    4. Chris, that story is very funny. You and I have had a similar problem with excessive cooking for Christmas. However, I have never tried a cooking project as excessive as your yule log effort and my wife and I usually get at least a little recognition regarding our efforts to prepare special food for this holiday.

      Like

      Reply

    5. Excellent story … I used to make these at the bakery, so I was with you all along and so glad you didn’t forget to dust the mushrooms! I have never attempted this in my home kitchen since leaving the bakery – you are braver than I!

      Like

      Reply

    6. No prophet gets heard in his own country, and no cook, it seems, can be honored at the family holiday table.

      I used to think the holidays would be a chance to go all out in a way that makes little sense for a family of 2. Tried it for several years. That way lies madness in my family.

      Farm fresh real whipped cream? fergeddaboudit-we’ve got Cool Whip!

      We now stop at a Perkins on the way to Iowa to pick up the Thanksgiving pies, if that.

      Like

      Reply

  11. An annual event at our house is krumkake baking (or, as my friend Stephanie, who rolls the krumkake, calls it, “hot hot hot, ow ow ow”). Now, krumkake itself is not difficult. There is a bit of a zen to krumkake to get the batter beaten to just the right consistency (not too thick, not too thin), and getting the heat under the irons consistent requires tweaking throughout the process (I have my grandmother’s electric iron, but that just feels like cheating – I prefer my two stove top irons). Once you have the batter ready to go, and the irons at the right temp, spoon the batter on, wait, flip, wait – transfer hot krumkake to the counter and have your krumkake compatriot roll it (“hot hot hot, ow ow ow”) – keep an ice pack handy for the roller’s fingers. Wait. Stack once they are cool. Try not to eat too many while you are making them (you will break a few, and a few may get overdone – these are fair game).

    The challenge comes with not starting the kitchen on fire. This should be easy. And I have managed for several years not to flambe anything during the process. There’s a lot of butter in krumkake and the process is rife with grease fire possibilities, but keeping the melting butter away from open flame isn’t rocket science. Still, somehow in the last two years my krumkake zen has been a bit off. We now know how sensitive our smoke alarm system is (very), how many windows and doors we need to open if the system is set off (one in the dining room, back door, sometimes one in the living room for extra breeze), and that it’s good that I keep the baking soda above the stove. We only lost 2 krumkake last December – next year, no krumkake gets broken, no krumkake gets left behind. 🙂

    Like

    Reply

    1. I have managed to make lefse by myself with two griddles going. it takes a lot of coordination atind timing. The flour mess is awful.

      Like

      Reply

    2. When my Uncle Horace was alive he always brought his home made krumkake to our house for Thanksgiving. I inherited his krumkake making tools which came from his Norwegian wife. So far, I haven’t tried making krumkake myself.

      Like

      Reply

      1. I highly recommend having a companion for krumkake making – it allows you to have one person working the iron(s) and one rolling. Krumkake, like lefse, works best when you have someone to chat with and keep you company while you work.

        Like

        Reply

    3. Anna, I have never made krumkake, but I have eaten plenty. To the best of my knowledge, no krumkake ever gets left behind.

      Like

      Reply

  12. We once bought a Virginia country ham when we visited in Virginia, and hauled it all the way back to Winnipeg with us in a car, taking care to keep it cool and safe. When we got back to Canada we had to scrub and trim and I think soak the thing, and found that we really didn’t like it very much and regretted all the trouble we took with it. I have also spent hours over croissant and puff pastry with less than stellar results.

    Like

    Reply

    1. I’m just remembering, Renee, that a roommate bought a hideously expensive Virginia ham that had to be soaked before it could be cooked. The only container we had big enough to take this thing was the bath tub, which was also our shower stall, which is why the ham swam happily in our tub for several days while we got stinky because nobody could take a shower that week.

      Like

      Reply

  14. This is dreadfully OT, but maybe you won’t mind. I just installed an electronic dingus in my car that was sent to me by my auto insurance company (Progressive, the one with ads featuring Flo, the cheerful gal with white skin). I’m to drive around with this thing stuck plugged into a lead under my dash that I never knew was there. Every time I drive, spy satellites observe and comment. They notice how fast I go, how much I drive, how often I do jackrabbit starts, etc. This information is displayed on the internet so I can see it. At the end of a month I get to bargain with the insurance company, based on the data, to see if I should get reduced rates.

    This is fascinating to me. Since my car doesn’t leave the garage two or three days at a time, I mean to give them some radical data! Lower rates would be nice, but I’m trying to amass data that will have them buzzing for years. I haven’t been over 30 mph yet.

    Like

    Reply

    1. Not entirely off topic, Steve.
      When you begin to crunch all your data and assembling your argument to gain an advantage with your insurance company, I’m guessing that process will be about as simple and productive as crafting a Yule Log from scratch and delivering it fully frosted to a room full of toddlers.
      There could be a messy aftermath.

      Like

      Reply

  15. Did you know that when you set a toaster on fire the blue flames leap up to the underneath of your cupboards?……Toast is usually simple enuff even for Ben, but when the 25+ year toaster stopped popping up I continued to use it. My rationale was it still toasted and I could manually pop-up the toast. One morning I tried to fix the computer while the toast went way beyond toasted. I have a new toaster now

    Like

    Reply

    1. Timing Toast
      by Piet Hein

      There’s an art to doing it.
      Never try to guess.
      Toast until it burns,
      Then 20 seconds less.

      Like

      Reply

      3. With apologies to Piet Hein

        Flames from the toaster can be a curse;
        Making your burnt toast even worse;
        So thanks be to Heaven on your knees
        If you’ve got but one of these.

        Like

        Reply

  17. Love the Yule log chi trader anrd the voice of the narrator. Well done.
    Dale can I use the blast furnace when the melons are finished. I think I have some ideas on how to have a tea party that I would like to try out. There is a list of Bachman and pawlenty friends that I would like to invite. Maybe we could just use the island list from. How many tea party members does it take to fill a blast furnace and make a tea party casserole? I don’t know let’s get started and find out.

    Like

    Reply

  18. Ok, this is off topic but I have had it! My region is under a winter storm watch for Saturday night and Sunday. We are to have lots of heavy, wet snow on Sunday, with strong winds and drifting. Enough already! Where is Spring?

    Like

    Reply

Leave a reply to Steve in Saint Paul Cancel reply