Freshly Baked

I’ve been getting stoned a lot lately, which is nothing new by itself, but sometimes when I get stoned, I get the munchies something fierce. Like wrap two slices of fucking bread around the fridge and throw some fucking ketchup on that shit kind of fierce. Big, fucking, ground breaking, earth shattering revelation, you say? I know, right? But, seriously, I get fucking hungry as fuck when I’m high. Don’t you? Sometimes, you can just smoke some more weed and then, poof, the munchies go away, but not always. Sometimes, those few extra hits make you think you’re Doctor Fucking Livingstone or Indiana Fucking Jones or some shit like that and you mount an ill-fated expedition into the deepest, darkest reaches of the kitchen, where you spend the next two hours lost in the refrigerator, until some other stoner, who thinks he’s fucking Stanley, finally realizes that you’ve been missing for two hours and sends out a search party to rescue your ass. True story.

Anyway, back to the food. I love to talk about food. I love to eat food too, but I hardly ever eat, not unless I’m stoned. I just don’t get hungry very often. Get me stoned, though and I’ll eat everything in sight. I have no self-control when I'm high. None, whatsoever. I’m supposed to be gluten-free, having Celiac disease and all, but shitballs, what the fuck am I supposed to do when pizza comes around acting all slutty and shit? 

The mind is willing, but the flesh is weak. Oh, so very weak. I had pizza yesterday and I’m going to eat it again, tonight. Fuck it. I’ll live it up tonight, pay for it tomorrow and tomorrow’s not here yet, so fuck it, I might as well live it up tonight. That’s circular logic. I like circular logic. It enables and empowers me. Here I come to save the fucking day…

Most of the time…

No, that’s not right.

Some of the time…

No, not that one, either.

Occasionally…

Nope, not gonna’ do it.

Every now and fucking then…

There we go! That one sounds about right.

Every now and fucking then, I try to be good about the things that I put into my body and let me tell you, that’s a lot of shit to keep track of. I’m not as good as I should be, nor do I do it as often as I should, but I do try to eat healthy whenever I can. Shit, sometimes, I’ll even read the label on the food, but usually I’m too stoned to think about that sort of thing.

Hell, I’m stoned, right now and I’m thinking about that sort of thing. I’m so confused.

Big fucking surprise, right?

Most of the time, it’s great to have a few bags of chips, or candy, or chocolate, or popcorn, or bacon, or cardboard, or cat litter (it stays crunchy in milk), or whatthefuckever, handy for when you’re stoned, but sometimes, you just feel the urge to be creative. Channel your inner caveman. Hunt, kill and then eat something. Like your roommate. Just kidding. Don’t shit your pants.

As an example, I like to do most of my baking while I’m baked. This way, I’m baking while I’m baking.  The goods get baked and so do I. I just bake and bake and bake.

Did I mention that I also like to cook with wine?

It does wonders for my attitude.

Speaking of baking, lately I’ve been making parmesan crisps and let me tell you, they’re fucking good. Plus, they’re easy as fuck to make and you only need a few things to do it and the plain, old, basic recipe only calls for one ingredient, parmesan cheese. Listen to me though, don’t make the boring, plain, old, basic recipe with just one ingredient. Play with it a little. Be creative, unlike my sex life.

Let me take you on a journey to a faraway land and we'll go off on a magical food adventure together. It’s like a fantastical stoney tale, where you’ll get to live happily ever after, or at least until your buzz wears off.

I never promised you a rose garden.

Making the parmesan crisps is stoner simple and all that you need to do it are an oven, gas/electricity, a baking sheet, some parchment paper (not wax paper - the cheese sticks to it) and some sort of device to measure time, like, you know, a timer. Oh, and maybe like a glove, or a towel or something to pull the hot baking sheet out of the oven. You just might regret it if you burn the living fuck out of your hand. Safety first. No glove, no love.

Once again, this is a simple recipe and you can use pretty much whatever kind of parmesan cheese that you might have sitting around the house, except for the shit that comes in the green plastic bottle. Don’t use the powdery Kraft shit or anything else like that, because it sucks. I made the crisps a few different times, using different types of parmesan and had pretty decent results, most of the time. I mean, the shit was good, but they would overcook a little and to be honest, while good, they seemed a bit plain. I adjusted the cooking time downward and got much better results and decided to try adding a few different ingredients.

Don't use this kind of shit.

Flash forward to today and I’m out running some errands for my girlfriend. My first stop was at Trove Cannabis and I have to admit, that particular errand was all about me. I picked up a gram of The Jack, a very potent, 28% THC, Jack Herer pheno reserve strain from Cascadia Gardens that was packed full of tasty terps and with a flavor that was pleasing to the palate.

I also bought a .85 gram, pre-rolled joint of Black Cherry Soda from Leef, so that I’d have some driving around weed. The reason I’d stopped at Trove was because I’d received a text from them letting me know that today was a vendor day and that the folks from Leef would be in and that all Leef products were 20% off. When I got there, all I could see were a few cartridges, some concentrates and two different joints. I asked about some flower and the girl behind the counter told me that they were waiting for the folks from Leef to show up with their delivery. I asked her when they were expected, figuring I’d grab a little something for now and then come back a little later for some more. She told me she’d ask her boss and then she went into the back to find out the answer to my question. When she returned, she told me that Leef had just emailed the store and let them know that they wouldn’t be delivering any flower today, but they would be dropping off some Agent Orange, in a couple of days. Crap. What kind of bullshit was that? You have a vendor day and the vendor isn’t even there and when they do eventually show up, they don’t have jack shit. That’s cannabis capitalism for you, or is it stoner socialism? Whatever. It all tastes like disappointment to me.

Well, there wasn’t much that I could do about any of that, so I grabbed my shit and took off. Places to see and weed to smoke and all that.

I sparked up the joint and smoked half of it

I ran the rest of the errands on my list and finally ended up at Whole Foods. I was so fucking high by the time I walked in there, I was instantly swept away on a sensory tsunami of epicurean delight and I was lost like the SS Minnow on a three-hour tour, stranded in a faux hippy Wal-Mart.

I think I must have groped about half of the items in that place, as I stumbled down the aisles, but I somehow managed to get the few things that I needed, pay and get out, in something like less than two hours and that must be some kind of fucking record for me. Added bonus - I didn't have to smell any Whole Foods Hippies, those dreadlock coiffed empty shells, stuffed overfull with organic patchouli and tie-dyed arrogance. 

Meanwhile, I’d worked up quite a case of the munchies, which makes sense, because I’d smoked an awful lot of pot by this time, so I decided that when I got back to my girlfriend’s house, I was going to chow down on some parmesan crisps.

I smoked the rest of that joint on the way there.

I got back to her place, unpacked the groceries and put them away, while I waited for the oven to heat up. I threw some parchment paper on a baking sheet, spooned out some grated parmesan cheese and threw it all in the oven. I set the timer for seven minutes and smoked a bowl while I was waiting.

That’s when the idea for this story and recipe were born. I even remembered to grab the camera and take a few pictures. I’m quite proud of myself for remembering that, because I always forget to take pics. Hell, I’m lucky if I can remember if I wiped my ass or not, before I pull my pants up.

The timer went off and I pulled the crisps out of the oven. They were slightly overcooked. Fuck. I was cooking with gas and had forgotten to adjust the temperature and time in the oven, because gas ovens cook a little hotter and a little faster than electric ovens do. Well, they say pot makes you forget shit, but I don’t believe that for a second. I smoke a lot of fucking pot and I can still remember all of the shit that I want to forget and none of the shit that I want to remember.

Anyway, I tried one of the parmesan crisps and it was good, but I still felt they were a little plain, so I dusted the crisps with some basil, oregano and kosher salt. They were delicious, so I decided to make another batch. I found another container of shredded parmesan in the fridge. This time, the cheese was the remains of a high-end, aged and shredded batch of cheese. I spooned out the cheese, splashed a little olive oil over the piles of parmesan and then dusted everything with garlic powder, basil, oregano and sea salt, before returning the pan to the oven and setting the timer. I checked on the cheese after five minutes and it was a soggy mess, drowning in the olive oil. Disappointed, I returned the pan to the oven for another two minutes and to my surprise, the crisps had absorbed the excess olive oil and were crisp and perfect. So much so, that I decided to experiment again with a third batch. 

Unfortunately, the only parmesan cheese left in the house by that point was a green bottle of the cheap ass Kroger shit, but it did have the same consistency as the grated parmesan that I had used to make the first batch, so I figured, fuck it, why not?

Grasshopper had much to learn.

I spooned out the third batch, added the olive oil, sea salt and some fresh rosemary. Looking at my handiwork, I decided to add some balsamic vinegar to about half of the third batch, threw the baking sheet in the oven and waited to see what would happen.

I smoked another bowl while I was waiting. Fuck it.

I didn’t have long to wait. The cheap shit had the fastest cooking time and the third batch was finished in about five minutes. The color and the texture of the cheap cheese looked entirely different from the first two batches. I tried one of the crisps and while the herbs and balsamic vinegar imparted a wonderful flavor, that flavor was contrasted rather poorly and very sharply by the appearance and the consistency of the cheap cheese.

In my opinion, the best cheeses to use were the grated parmesan, which we picked up from Trader Joe’s and the aged parmesan that we buy from Costco and then grate it fresh.

All in all, the parmesan crisps were a huge success and will have many uses, including as a substitute for croutons in a salad and I’m thinking of experimenting with some crazy parmesan crisp pizza nacho thingies.

So, I just made you read all of that and dragged your ass all the way here just to show you a recipe.

Sorry.

Anyway, here’s that recipe:

Parmesan Crisps

Fresh grated parmesan cheese

Olive oil

Fresh garlic, minced garlic, or garlic powder

Fresh or dried herbs (basil/oregano, rosemary, whatever – be creative)

Salt & Pepper

Balsamic vinegar (optional)

Any and all of these ingredients are optional, except the parmesan cheese, because you need parmesan cheese if you’re going to make parmesan crisps.

You will also need a cookie sheet, some parchment paper, a tablespoon and a timer.

Preheat the oven to 425.

Size the parchment paper to the cookie sheet.

Spoon the parmesan cheese onto the cookie sheet. Each crisp should be about 1 tablespoon.

Use the bottom of the spoon to flatten the piles of cheese.

Splash the cheese with just a drop or two of olive oil, Dust the piles of cheese with the garlic powder, herbs, salt, pepper; whatever.

Add a few drops of balsamic vinegar (if desired).

Place the cookie sheet on the center rack in the oven and cook for 5 – 7 minutes.

Remove from the oven and let the crisps cool.

Mangia.

Let me know what you think.

The Tale of the White Whale and the Stinky Cheese Man

PART ONE

"Call me Ishmael." - Herman Melville

“There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.” 

― Herman Melville

     Selling a car is a relatively simple process. The buyer shows up, inspects the vehicle, reaches a decision and makes an offer. The seller can accept or reject the offer, alternatively, the seller can make a counter-offer. If there is mutual agreement, a financial transaction takes place and the vehicle goes home with its new owner. It's not exactly rocket science. It's not a life or death situation. Not usually. However, once you add me to the equation things can go from mundane to absolute chaos in the blink of an eye. In other words, shit happens.

     I've always been a Jeep kind of guy and by that I mean the image and not the reality. Maybe it's that whole manly man doing manly things, wind in my stubble, suave and debonair delusional image that I have of myself, but I'm far too modest to mention any of that. And well, because I'm so butch. To be honest, I've never owned a real Jeep, but I have ridden in them. The Jeeps that I have owned have been Grand Cherokees and don't exactly fit the whole manly man doing manly things, wind in my stubble , suave and debonair delusional image that I have of myself, which I'm far too modest to mention.

     But I digress.

     Ya'll wanna see something really cool, don'tcha?

     I've owned many vehicles over the years, two of which were Jeep Grand Cherokees, One Jeep was great; sturdy, reliable and it played host to many an adventure. If you've read Unsinkable, you're already familiar with one of those adventures. To call the other Jeep a piece of shit would be a far greater act of compassion than I am capable of. Of course, this is a story about the piece of shit Jeep. A Jeep that was not quite affectionately known as "The White Whale." And when I say "not quite affectionately known as," I mean it quite literally. Well, at least I mean the part about "not known as," because that's all bullshit, we didn't call it anything, but I needed a name for the story and there it was. Why? Because fuck you, that's why.

     Anyway, the White Whale had a few minor issues. Little things like the four wheel drive was out, the transmission was shot, it needed a new clutch, new rings; you know, just a few cosmetic details here and there. Now might also be a good time to mention that it wasn't in what I would quite call running condition, hell, that thing couldn't run if it had legs, but it looked great. I mean, other than the few minor flaws that I mentioned, it was a perfectly good vehicle. I'd certainly trust my ex-wife in it, alone, on a steep mountain, going downhill, in the winter, with black ice and no guardrail. Perchance to dream...

     Again, I digress and I used bad paraphrasing, too. My apologies.

     I'm sure that you can understand why I might be considered a very motivated seller of such a fine example of American crapsmanship and why I would shed a tear at the fond memory of many breakdowns spent sitting beside the road, waiting for AAA to come and save my sorry ass.

     But then the Lord shined His light upon me. Fucking Hallelujah!

     You see, sometimes I wonder if there is a God and if I'm just one of those people that He likes to fuck with. Intentionally. Like, for His own amusement. I think He looks over the world, watching it slowly spin around the Sun, mumbling crazy shit to Himself like an old homeless man. You know, He's just enjoying Himself, checking out the beauty of His creation and shit until he notices me and thinks, "Hey, isn't that the asshole that I like to fuck with?"

     Jonah? Yeah... he ain't got shit on me.

     This is how it all went down...

     One day, out of the blue, there was a knock upon my door. I opened the door and... holy shit!

     I heard fucking banjos.

     I smelled cheese. And... shit?

.

      Standing on my front porch was the complete stereotypical West Virginia example of Pa Kettle, an old, tall, skinny, redneck, farmer looking dude. He had it all. The scraggly grey beard, the beaten John Deere trucker hat, the denim jacket with the sheepskin collar, flannel shirt and overalls that were so old and filthy, they looked as if they'd been rolled in cow shit and dried to a fine crust. His dirty work boots looked as if they'd just won a shit kickin' contest. I could feel my nose wrinkle in offense. The stranger's stench rolled over me like a dust storm across the desert; vast and frightening.  He was creepy; he had a really weird vibe. I looked at his hands, expecting to find an axe, probably because I've seen way too many horror movies, which kind of does make me an authority on this kind of shit, but there were no sharp objects or small farm animals in his hands which was strange because I had this guy pegged as either an animal fucker (farmer), child molester, serial killer, or even worse, a Jehovah's witness. He was one or the other, of this I was certain. NOTE - Don't even try to fuck with my math here, people. I hate math. Math sucks giant pickled anaconda balls. There are three kinds of people in this world; those who are good at math and those who aren't. I'm in that third category.

     As if this all wasn't weird enough and stranger still, I also smelled cheese. Not just any kind of cheese, mind you. This was the scent of a finely cave aged Limburger that was stuffed inside of a dirty sock and wrapped with shit stained tightey whiteys prior to aging. He smelled like cheese. And shit. Shit cheese. String shit cheese. Not a pleasant thought, is it?

     I'll get back to all of that in just a second. The cheese, I mean. Okay, the shit too, don't worry.

     For brevity's sake, I'll refer to him as the Cheese Man. Parked behind the Cheese Man was his own Jeep Cherokee. Fucking great, we could be besties...

     Cheese Man inquired if I might be interested in selling the White Whale.

     I did a little fucking dance in my head.

     Sell it? Would I?

     Show me the fucking money; the moolah, the dough, the cash, the motherfucking Benjamins.

     Let's say that I was easily persuaded. Like I said, I was motivated. Superfuckingmotivated, come to think of it.

     Cheese Man made me an offer and I made him a counter-offer. We negotiated a price and reached an agreement and he counted out the cash and handed it to me. The money felt greasy and smelled foul, but I counted it and stuffed the money into my pocket faster than shit through a goose, which judging by the smell, is where Cheese Man kept his cash.

     Now, I just needed to find the title and Cheese Man could be on his way, so of course I couldn't find the title. I looked and I looked and I looked. No bueno. I finally found the damn thing in the filing cabinet, right where it was supposed to be. I had already looked in there several times, file by file and paper by paper and found nothing. Nothing. Zilch. Zip. Nada. And suddenly it magically appears? Right where it's supposed to be? I call bullshit. Magical witchcraft fuckery is what it was.

     With a flourish, I signed the title over to Cheese Man and he pockets it faster than his dick through a sheep and then Cheese Man sticks out his grime covered hand. A handshake? Really? You expect me to shake that filthy shit stained hand? I shook his hand, it felt greasy and foul. "Fuck it," I thought, "I'll just saw off my hand and incinerate it later."

     Cheese Man walked back to his Jeep, started it up and drove over to the White Whale. He emerged from his Jeep carrying a large chain and starts chaining the two Jeeps together, opting to tow the White Whale backwards out of my driveway. Good luck, with that. After a very short run, my driveway was nearly vertical, with an extremely sharp right or left turn at the top, as it met the road. Misjudge that turn and there's a good chance that you'll make a very quick trip down the mountain. I couldn't wait to see this, I'd watched many people fail at trying to escape from my driveway. This was going to be good. Even I had managed to turn a vehicle sideways and almost over the edge of the mountain in  my driveway. Don't ask. Don't even fucking ask.

     After Cheese Man got the vehicles chained together, he inspected his work, gave himself a porcine snort of approval and walked back over to me.

     "Please don't shake my hand again," I thought.

     My worry was quite needless as Cheese Man had one simple question.

     "Do you think you could steer the white Jeep out of the driveway for me, while I pull it up?" he asked me.

     "Sure, no problem," I replied.

     What could possibly go wrong?

     Have you ever looked back and identified that singular moment where everything started to unravel? You know, that moment where you lose all control and you realize that you're completely screwed. This was that moment, although I was too clueless to realize it at the time.

     This was the moment that God decided to fuck with me. The moment when he looked at all of his little angel buddies and said, "Hey, ya'll wanna' see something really cool?"

     I carefully explained how to get out of my driveway to the Cheese Man before climbing into the White Whale and buckling myself in. I was pretty sure that he had listened to my instructions.

     Cheese Man gunned the engine on his Jeep. I felt my sphincter contract. Pucker factor. He gunned the engine again, I felt a quick jerk and we took off up the driveway.

     We came back down just as quickly, which is when I discovered that the White Whale had no breaks. The Jeep came to a sudden stop as it pulled against the chain, throwing me against the seat belt. I loudly informed the Cheese Man that I had no brakes. In response, he gunned his engine again. I'm really not sure what part of "Hey, I have no fucking brakes," is so fucking hard to understand. Fuck me.

     We tried again with the same result. And again. And again. Six fucking times. I was a little over that shit by this point and I had much better things to do with my time, like spending Cheese Man's money.

     Nobody ever fucking listens.

     After the sixth attempt, I got out of the White Whale and I carefully explained to Cheese Man, once again, how to get out of my driveway and reminded him that I had no brakes. I'm fairly sure that he was half-listening to me.

     Cheese Man said that he was good to go and I climbed back into the Whale. He gunned his engine again, another quick jerk on the chain and we were off. Another fail. Cheese Man tried again and I could just imagine the grim determination that furrowed and cracked the crap caked into his brow. He gunned the engine into a deep throated growl as we launched down the driveway once again. Cheese Man made it to the very top of the driveway, gunned the engine again and made a sharp left, adding more power and I felt the Whale pull out of the driveway and onto the road. We made it! It was magical witchcraft fuckery, alright.

     Well, sort of...

     I had no brakes, remember?

     Cheese Man had stopped on the road facing uphill and the Whale was about to smash into his Jeep.

     No bueno.

     I quickly hit the brakes and nothing. Nada, zilch, zip; no fucking brakes. I had forgotten that I had no brakes. That's some serious fucking no bueno shit, right there. The Whale slammed into the back of Cheese man's Jeep and bounced off. Now, this wouldn't have been such a big deal if Cheese Man hadn't stopped his Jeep on an uphill portion of the road, fucking genius that he was and if the Whale had functioning brakes, which it didn't.

     The Whale started rolling downhill. I kept hitting the brakes, somehow hoping that some sort of magical witchcraft fuckery would happen and the brakes would suddenly start working. They didn't.

     The Whale rolled down to the edge of the mountain and before I could so much as shit my pants, the behemoth rolled straight over the edge, quickly picking up speed.

     Things are way the fuck beyond no bueno at this point. My shit was about to get seriously fucked up. I still hadn't soiled myself. Hey, it's a minor point of pride.

     The Whale was speeding down the mountain and headed straight for a copse of very large trees. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion as the trunk of the largest tree grew larger and larger in the windshield. Suddenly, I felt like Captain Ahab, strapped to the side of Moby Dick, about to take that final, fateful plunge.

Yeah, just like that.

     Strangely, I wasn't scared; I don't think there was time for that because everything happened so quickly. My life didn't flash before my eyes and I didn't break out some dusty, old, forgotten prayer to the Invisible Sky Man that loves to torment me. All that I could think about was that I would have to give Cheese Man his money back and that really pissed me off. "Fuck that guy," I suddenly thought, I totally deserved the money after experiencing Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.

     I had just braced myself for the impact with the tree when I felt the chain jerk again and the Whale came to a sudden, violent stop, bare inches from hitting the tree. I was thrown hard against the seat belt, but that was the worst of it. The best part? I still hadn't shit myself.

     Suddenly, there was another violent tug on the chain and Cheese Man was able to pull the Whale out of the gully and back onto the road. Thankfully, he kept going until the road leveled out and, you guessed it, the whale slammed into him again, but I was saved! My money was safe!

     Cheese Man jumped out of his Jeep and asked me if I wouldn't mind steering the Whale while he towed it back to his house. I agreed, because I'm an idiot and lack any sort of common sense, yet lead an obviously charmed life. Fabufuckinglous.

     We made it safely over the river and through the woods to the Cheese Man plantation, until the very last moment, where of course the whale had to give me one last beating, by once again slamming itself violently into the back of Cheese Man's Jeep.

     I hopped out of the Whale and hit the ground, taking a good look around. I made the horrible mistake of taking a deep breath and I was staggered by the stench.

     You see, Cheese man lived on a pig farm. There were pigs everywhere, so many that it was like roving herds of bacon. The smell of the offal hit me like a physical wave and I swallowed my nausea. There were piles of pig shit everywhere, you couldn't avoid them. That was one mystery solved; I now knew why Cheese Man smelled like shit, still, another mystery remained. Why did the Cheese Man smell like cheese? I noticed that there was something else strewn all over the ground, little clear plastic wrappers that upon closer inspection appeared to be Kraft Singles wrappers. Aha! Another mystery solved. One thing still puzzled me though. This guy didn't smell like processed cheese, he smelled like Époisses. Époisses, for those of you who don't know, is one of the smelliest cheeses in the world. Indeed, Époisses has been banned from public transportation vehicles all over France. It is made from raw cow's milk and its rind is washed with pomace brandy. Just a little fromage knowledge for you.

This little piggy went to market.

     I think I might have even thrown up in my mouth a little.

     I walked around to the front of the Whale, wanting to leave this madness behind me as quickly as possible.

     And that was when things started to get a little weird...

     Stay tuned for Part Two.

     If you enjoyed reading this story, please give this one a shot. Thanks!

Someone's Been Sleeping In My Bed