In which I’m not complaining but I definitely am

On March 16, 2025 By Luther M. SilerIn Cooking, life2 Comments

I am not big on the whole St. Patrick’s Day thing. I have been more strident in my dislike in the past, especially when I lived a life more likely to expose me to drunken idiots in green (ie, when I lived in Chicago) but I am not willing to even pretend to be remotely Irish, am definitely not remotely Catholic, and I don’t drink, and between those three things I don’t have any particular use for this holiday. This means that when my wife told me that we were getting together with her side of the family today, and that “brisket” would be involved, I was excited as hell– I never get brisket– and I did not even think to connect it to the holiday.

You can imagine my consternation when we got to the party and the “brisket” was corned beef, which yes, I understand is from the same part of the cow and is in fact a different preparation of the same meat, but Goddammit when I get to a party and I’m expecting brisket on a Sunday afternoon and instead I’m given a reuben I might start muttering under my breath and quietly sending pointed and slightly disrespectful text messages to my wife. Don’t misunderstand me, I love a good reuben, although my particular preference for brined meats on rye runs more to pastrami– but reubens don’t at all fit into the same headspace as “brisket,” dammit, and part of me still feels betrayed.(*)

The rest of me is stuffed full of corned beef, though, so all in all it was a pretty good day.

(*) I should have learned after seventeen years of marriage into this family that I should never assume I know what is going to happen when we go to her sister’s place for a meal, even when said sister isn’t responsible for the cooking, and most of the cooking for this particular event was done by her cousins. The last time we went there for Thanksgiving there were no mashed potatoes, which is a food sin of the highest order, and I absolutely left that particular gathering with my dis firmly gruntled. You can’t even call it Thanksgiving if there are no mashed potatoes. It may as well be Mashed Potato Day. There can be other potatoes too, I’m fond of au gratin and any form of sweet potato, but either way wrongs were committed against Thanksgiving in general and me in particular.

The more you know: Essential addendum

On September 17, 2013 By Luther M. SilerIn Reviews1 Comment

Maybe an hour after eating the Arby’s Smokehouse Brisket Sandwich, you start sweating Arby’s Smokehouse Brisket Sandwich Sweat out of the pores of your nose, which is not a terribly pleasant experience. Note that the Arby’s Smokehouse Brisket Sandwich is not actually terribly oily (I’m blaming the gouda, for no damn good reason) so the Brisket Sweats I’ve been experiencing for the last couple of hours are both confusing and somewhat inexplicable.

Perhaps this is one of those rare “wash your face after eating” types of sandwiches.

Oh: fingers, also. My fingers smell like brisket. I swear I’m generally clean. It’s the sandwich.

Still tasty, though.

The more you know

On September 17, 2013September 17, 2013 By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy, Reviews, Teaching1 Comment

memphis-bbq-beautiful-ladies-closer

First, a brief public service announcement: the Arby’s Smokehouse Brisket Sandwich is… how do you say it? “Mad tasty, yo?” Is that right? I think that’s how the kids talk nowadays. What I mean to say is that I enjoyed eating it.

People who respond to this by suggesting that I should buy a smoker and make my own brisket and stop eating brisket from Arby’s are going to be alternately mocked, ignored, or set on fire, depending on my mood, just so you know. 🙂

(The young ladies in the picture to the right are not eating an Arby’s Smokehouse Brisket Sandwich; that appears to be some sort of cheeseburger. Hey, it’s what Google gave me. Blame Google. Not me.)

Public service announcement ends.

Apparently we have hit the point where all of the students who understand that I break up fights immediately and prejudicially have left the building, because I’ve broken up three in the gym so far this year, after going an entire school year without having to do it once. The one yesterday was particularly bad since the rest of the seventh and eighth grade girls behaved as if they were at a goddamned WWE match, causing me to hold every last one of their asses in the gym after dismissing everyone else and read them the riot act, including the phrase “I am sick of your shit.” While it might surprise you given my vocabulary in other situations, I don’t often swear (by which I mean, I almost never swear) in front of my kids, and when I do do it, it’s fully calculated and for effect one hundred percent of the time. “I am sick of this,” they wouldn’t have heard. I am sick of your shit made it into every teenage skull in the room. I dispelled another situation this morning before it escalated to the level of a fight, and I think I was able to do that mostly because of the tongue-lashing from yesterday.

Hopefully, tomorrow will slide by with little to no drama.

He said.

(An aside: I’ve been listening to Gnarls Barkley while writing this– I’m not a huge fan and don’t listen to the CD often, but it popped into my head the other day so it’s still up on iTunes. One of their songs begins with someone chanting “wake up wake up,” which reminded me that I really like Bone Thugz-n-Harmony, and now I’m listening to 1st of tha Month. Which kind of entertains me. Also: Your rent’s due, motherfucker.)

(A second aside: One of the tags on this post was suggested by WordPress, and I’m predicting this post gets twice as many views as normal because of it. See if you can guess which one!)

I think that’s about it so I’m going to close with a picture of Seth Greene and his wife, because HOW THE HELL IS THAT HIS WIFE.