An Offal Tale - Pan-Fried Calf Liver with Onions and Bacon

I'm a lover of liver, whether it be chicken, calf, duck, goose or beef.  Foie gras tickles my fancy, especially when it is served on top of a fried Krispy Kreme doughnut, the way they prepared it at a.lure Restaurant in Savannah, Georgia.  Right now a.lure is serving cornmeal-crusted chicken livers on their appetizer menu, while nearby Vic's on the River, another favorite in which I've ordered their chicken liver offering in the past, right now has fried chicken liver sliders on their menu of sandwich selections.  More proof that, as my friend Dave has explained to me more than once, Southerners really are one of the Lost Tribes of Israel.  Also more proof of why I love Savannah.  OMG the food!  And by the way, one of the most beautiful cities I have ever visited.

Chicken livers are probably my all-time favorite, although my grandmother (she-who-raised me) made the most fantastic Jewish chopped liver using beef liver.  No hard-boiled eggs, either.  Her chopped liver was serious stuff, best consumed by people who came from Ashkenazic Jewish stock all the way back to the Russian shtetels of the nineteenth century.  In her mind, only Litvaks, Galicianes, and goyim ate chopped liver made from chicken liver, and as far as she was concerned, anyone adding chopped hard-boiled eggs to any chopped liver recipe was practically a heretic.

Preparing chopped beef liver was a production.  There had to be a lot of fried onions.  Substantial quantities of fried onions, which required peeling and chopping vast numbers of sharp yellow globes  capable of inducing more tears than Melanie's death scene in "Gone With The Wind."  Then you had to cook the liver, and I don't recall now if she broiled the liver (the kosher way to prepare it) or sautéed it in some of the onion-infused corn oil.  Her liver was never dried out, and she never kept kosher, so I'm voting for the sauté.

Finally, the cooked liver had to be eased into a meat grinder, which was of course, manual.  Mom still cooked like she was a young wife and mother back in the late 1920s, and wasn't big on any kind of electric appliances.  She did own a manual egg beater in addition to her hand grinder, which was pretty high-tech for her.

In time she came to appreciate the awesome qualities of true gehaktah leber made from chicken liver, which was a good thing since it was the way I preferred to make it.

When I was growing up in the Five Towns, our family used to go to a restaurant in Cedarhurst, the name of which I cannot remember. Two dishes I remember from the menu were Roumanian Tenderloin, which the rest of the world knows as skirt steak, and Liver with Onions or Bacon.  The liver was sliced thick - at least an inch, probably closer to an inch and a half, was crusty on both sides, and simply delicious.  I alternated choices, as the skirt steak and the liver were, and remain, two of my favorite foods in the world.  Ketchup was de riguere with both dishes (at this point, my beloved husband, who faithfully reads my blog posts, is no doubt shuddering with culinary horror.  Sorry, my love).

Chicken livers, and sometimes calf liver, are available in the regular meat case.  When available, I like to purchase organic chicken livers, but that's not absolutely necessary.  I do not buy the calf liver in the meat case,  just as I do not buy the veal, with the notable exception of breast of veal.  Veal is so expensive that it is rarely purchased by anyone, and it tends to sit there, passing the buy date while turning strange and unappetizing colors.

One day, when I was suffering major sticker shock while pricing brisket and ground beef, I decided to try the frozen calf liver, which seems to always be available at Publix.  I knew this was going to be something that only Rob and I would consume, because our son, who cheerfully eats all types of raw fish, eel, venison, elk, alligator, and ostrich, will not touch liver.  Take this kid into a Korean restaurant - or to Korea - and he will scarf down foods which leave me faint. Offer him a beautiful dish piled high with plump, sweet chicken livers cooked with tons of onions, garlic, and a touch of oregano, and he will run screaming into the night.

I blame it on a biology lesson he had, somewhere around fifth grade.

Anyway, if you are one of those people who think offal is awful, this would be a good time to jump ship.

1 pound of sliced bacon
1 large onion, halved and sliced
1 -1 pound package frozen calf liver (it comes sliced, skinned, and deveined), defrosted.
Milk or Half-and-Half
All-Purpose Flour
Kosher Salt
Coarsely Ground Black Pepper
Canola Oil

The night before, rinse the defrosted liver under cool water and place in a flat plastic container with a lid.  Pour in enough milk or half-and-half to cover, and refrigerate overnight.

The next day, preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  Lay out the bacon in a large baking pan with sides.  When the bacon is cooked to your favorite degree of crispness, remove it to cool on paper towels.  Pour the bacon fat into a large skillet with high sides, and add an equal amount of canola oil.  Over medium high heat, start to sauté the onions.

Place a cup or so of flour onto a large plate, and season the flour with the salt and pepper.  Push the onions to one side of the skillet.  Remove each piece of liver from the milk and let the excess drip off, then immediately dredge in the seasoned flour.  Repeat until each piece is floured.  Working in batches, fry the liver alongside the onions, turning the liver when blood starts to rise on the surface.  You want the liver to be browned on both sides and cooked through, but not dried out.  Take your time and check the doneness as you go along.  Also continue to stir and turn the onions so that they brown evenly.

Serve the liver with the fried onions and the bacon. My all-time favorite side dish for liver is mashed potatoes, and because I love them with mashed potatoes, cooked sweet green peas.  Don't forget the bottle of ketchup. Yes, it has to be Heinz.

Five Minutes - Happy Birthday, Cory

Five minutes.  That is all I need this morning to transition back to working mode.  Five minutes to meditate, without my furry children  bouncing all over the bed, and me.  Five minutes in which I can breathe deep and drink some coffee.  Five minutes in which to absorb the fact that it is 39 degrees out there.  What the hell?

Most importantly, five minutes in which to wish my son Cory the happiest of birthdays.  Today he turns 28, and I could not be prouder than I am of my handsome, loving, accomplished son.  Happy birthday, Boy.  I love you.

No Good Day Goes Unpunished

One really good day, was Monday.  Felt good, despite an early lack of balance, accomplished much.  Since then, not so good.  As of today, Wednesday, only getting worse.  I tried eating a little protein around 11 - could not even consider taking my medication before that.  Now I just hope I don't have to throw up before the medication is absorbed.  The gabapentin is minimally helpful and the capsule is large and therefore difficult to swallow.  Both my arms are compromised today.  The dogs, especially Romeo, are overly protective. How do they know?

Rob comes in with bad news.  Another friend from our earliest days in Hunter's Creek, cancer, Stage 4.  Surgery and treatment, blah blah blah. F*ck you, Stage 4 cancer.  You are messing with too many people who I care about.

Standing for any period of time is painful.  If I had any doubts about that, the way that my back felt last night after folding a small load of laundry is proof enough for me.  I'd had to use the cane all day yesterday, but that was for walking, right?

Not being able to stand for too long also means not able to cook or bake. Fortunately I baked the Barely Bran Muffins before this latest flare.  And yesterday I garnered the energy to throw a pound and a half of whole, large button mushrooms into a crockpot along with some butter, wine, beef broth, Worcestershire and seasoning.  Then I went to work, which did not in any way improve the state of my health, but I had things I had to do in the office.  I suppose that holds true for today as well, as I do have court hearings tomorrow, but cane or no cane, I cannot navigate my way to work.  This is killing me (and probably not contributing anything positive to my supervisor's state of mind.  I am truly sorry, I wish I could stop this thing from interfering with my job.)  I also pre-seasoned the flap steak with garlic pepper, and left it in the refrigerator until such time as Robert has time to eat a decent dinner.  All easy stuff I could do without standing for long. Quick and dirty.

My doggies all need a good, warm, soapy bath, and I normally enjoy bathing them - they may feel differently, I realize - but I have had to put it off due to my #$%&!! limitations.  My doggies officially stink, damn it.

Back to the cooking conundrum - I have the ingredients for Spiced Pork and Apple Stew, which cooks in the crockpot, but does require some preparation, including browning the pork cubes with the onion and garlic. Since I decided to use sweet potatoes instead of white potatoes in this stew, I also have to precook those potatoes by half, as they will not cook as quickly as the white spuds and will therefore not be done in sync with the pork and other ingredients.  More standing, but just a little.  The rest of the prep? Not now, not yet.

That also goes for the asparagus wrapped in proscuitto. Yeah, I had big cooking dreams for this week.  Big working dreams, too.  

Note to the Universe:  On behalf of myself and all of my friends who are suffering with chronic pain and any other chronic disorder that sucks the joy out of living - 

Like a whirlpool - Barely Bran Muffins with Raisins

Dizzy!  I'm so dizzy, my head is spinning,
Like a whirlpool, it never ends

(Monday) Whoa!  What a morning. Trying to maintain a horizontal pose has been dicey here.  My balance is, how shall I put it, totally off, and not helped by the fact that not one floor in my house is level. The upstairs especially tilts precariously.  I don't know if this is because, over the past 90 years, the house has settled this way, or because the original builder was potted like a plant.  Either way, it is what it is, which is pretty funny most of the time, even when my balance is off and I'm a bit dizzy, as I am this morning.  I really love this house.

What I don't love this morning is having to go to court. Perhaps I need a break from the courtroom, with its inherent tension and inevitable drama.  That's not possible, of course; I am part of a team,  and we each have our own cases and our roles to play.  I am, in part, responsible for how this is done, because twnety years ago, when I took over as supervisor in the Brevard County office, I established that each attorney would handle their own cases, determined by alphabetic breakdown, from shelter to reunification or adoption.  Back in those days, we handled our own appeals as well, so our committment to each case was total and all-encompassing.  (Of course, when I transferred to Osceola County, I followed that paradigm as well.  I was the only attorney in the office, and had no choice.  Ha.  Talk about being hoisted on one's own petard.)

This was a change from the prevailing procedure, from when we had attorneys who only did the TPR trials, and in some counties in our district, specialization went further, with attorneys who only did shelters, arraignments, and judicial review hearings.

So here I am, wanting to head to the office to engage in a much-needed paper chase, but doomed to hobble into the courthouse for a judicial review.  Crap.  I meditated this morning, as I try to do most mornings, and it did not help.

It also did not help that my mother-in-law, who I love very much, is ill this morning and my son is taking her to her doctor or maybe possibly the hospital.  That also means my father-in-law, who I also love very much, is alone at home, as his mobility is severely limited.

I've been waiting over an hour for my 9:30 hearing.  Crap.  And whee! my head is still spinning, just enough to annoy me.  Hey, Head, I've got work to do!  Get your act together!

Okay, my morning went well.  And when I got back to the house to pick up my lunch, Cory reported that Grandma was okay, got treated, no hospital visit needed.  The witness lists are now done for all three trials, and passed along to Brenda, paralegal extraordinaire.  Seriously, the woman is amazing.

So I am here on time for my afternoon court.  It's astounding, time is fleeting. (Yes, madness takes it toll.) Crap. As the day goes on, that burst of energy that has carried me through the day so far is going to dissipate.  Hopefully I will be at home when that happens, and can land on my ass, if not my own couch, outside the sight of people whose opinion of my behavior really does matter.

Court finally ended at 6:20.  Let's do the Time Warp again, shall we?

Barely Bran Muffins with Raisins

1 box white cake mix

1 teaspoon baking powder

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1 cup plain yogurt (2 - 5.3 oz. containers Chobani non-fat Greek yogurt)

1/2 cup canola oil

3 extra-large eggs
finely grated orange peel of one large orange
3 cups Post Raisin Bran
1/2 cup dark raisins

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Wipe the top of the muffin pan with a paper towel sprayed with Pam.  Place a paper liner into each muffin cup.  Place the cereal into a one gallon ziptop plastic bag.  Press gently on the bag to crush the cereal flakes into smaller pieces.  It's not necessary to pulverize the cereal.  Set aside.

In a large bowl, combine the dry cake mix, baking powder, and the flour.  In another large bowl, combine the yogurt, oil, eggs, and orange peel.  Stir in the crushed raisin bran, and let the mixture sit for 5 minutes until the cereal softens.  Stir in the dark raisins. Add the dry ingredients to the cereal-liquid-raisin mixture and stir together with a wooden spoon; don't worry if there are some lumps left.  Let the batter sit for five or six minutes, then stir a few more times.

Scoop into the lined muffin cups, dividing the batter evenly between the cups. Bake for 20 to 22 minutes in the preheated oven.  Let cool a few minutes, then remove the muffins to a metal rack to cool completely.


Makes 12 muffins.

I know, I've been promising these for a while ... finally managed to get them together tonight, despite the late quittin' time.  Easy commute home, you know.  Anyway, they turned out completely different from what I expected - nothing like a "real" bran muffin which is dark and deep and branny (is that even a word?) and somewhat oily. This is that bran muffin's sunny brother, light and bright from the kiss of orange zest and barely branny despite the 3 cups of flakes.  It's not oily at all, and the yogurt stops it from being too sweet, but still creates a beautiful crumb.

Never fear, I'm still working on one of those heavier bran muffins, made with All-Bran - but first, I feel a banana muffin in my future.  Your future.  Our future?  Stay tuned.

When A Good Man Goes To War

Yesterday, watching the news, seeing more of the Islamic terrorist's handiwork, hearing more about the President's request for war powers, the phrase "when a good man goes to war" popped into my aching head.  It's from a Doctor Who episode, but right now, it seems so apropos to what is happening in the very real world.

Demons run when a good man goes to war
Night will fall and drown in sun
When a good man goes to war
Friendship dies and true love lies
Night will fall and the dark will rise
When a good man goes to war
Demons run but count the cost
The battle is won but the child is lost 

• I am a mom. I am a pacifist.  I am a child of the sixties, when the war in Vietnam had taken over the airwaves and politics.  I never wanted to see that again.
• I am a natural-born citizen of the United States of America, and my country is under attack from Muslim terrorists on US soil, and has been since the 1993 bombing at the World Trade Center. 
• I am a Jew by birth. My father was Jewish, my mother was Jewish.  Their parents and grandparents were Jewish.  My husband and son are Jewish. The Muslim terrorists wish to kill me, my family, and all of my co-religionists.  
• I am Jew, and part of my family is Christian.  At least half of my close friends are Christian.  Almost all of my co-workers are Christian.  The Muslim terrorists wish to kill all Christians.  The Muslim terrorists wish to kill everyone who I love, every friend, everyone who means anything to me.
• I am a Jew.  I have the Right of Return to Israel, a democratic nation created as a haven state for all Jews.  From the moment of its creation in 1948, the Muslim nations surrounding it have tried to destroy it.
• I am a human being.  I cannot and should not ignore the holocaust being perpetrated by ISIS, the Islamic State, the modern-day Nazis, in the Middle East.  I am an angry, frightened, bloodthirsty bitch who would see all of the Islamic terrorists destroyed by US and European troops from on the ground and in the air.

I'm not an idiot; I know there will be a terrible price to pay.  But tell me, what choice do we have?  What choice have they left us?  So in this, I support the President.  Other things, not so much.  But I liked the selfies. Loved them, actually.  He's not a great president, in my opinion, but he is a good man.