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..................... IIssue 9 ~ December 2002..............................
Smokey Brown's Grilled and Smoked Turkey
by Rick Brown


I had a wonderful "International Thanksgiving" this year. Our friend Sybille was visiting from Germany and had never had a traditional American Thanksgiving dinner. And my wife and I also invited a young couple that was unable to make their family get together. "Saucy" Sarah (see her homemade apple sauce recipe) and husband Abdel … who is from Morocco … joined Yvonne, myself, Sybille and … of course the French boy Henri … for dinner.

Since I smoked a turkey on my Weber Grill I suppose this wasn't entirely traditional. But we had all the trimmings … and then some. Yams, dressing, olives (some stuffed with blue cheese … others with garlic cloves), cranberries … you know the drill. And we watched the bad morning parade followed by the bad footballs games. Ahh Tradition.

Anyway … I only eat turkey once … maybe twice a year so I make a fuss. Get a good, organic, free range, fresh turkey if you can … and most of you can. DO NOT STUFF IT!!! Instead remove the giblets (nicey nice for guts)…boil them and give them to your dog. If you don't have a dog throw them away. They're ugly anyway and it just keeps reminding you that you are about to eat dead idiot bird. Instead stuff the turkey with one onion chopped in fourths, and some whole stalks of fresh herbs to keep it moist and add flavor.

Continued

In This Issue

The Gift of the Clown
(previously published in Crapshoot!)
by Ted Kane

Steven was broke. And out of a job. After five months of hard work for the dot.com--his position would've become permanent at six--he was fired without notice. Fired that very day. Friday, December 13th.
Continue ~ PotLuck

Where Have You Gone
Charming Billy??
by roberto lynch

William Edwin Carter
Born: July 28, 1949
Died: September 20, 1969
Killed in Vietnam

Not much of a bio, is it? As we commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Vietnam War Memorial, let us pause to reflect on the short life of Billy Carter. You see, Billy was my friend. We toddled off to kindergarten together. We lived in the same neighborhood, in the same dirt-shit, northwest Ohio town.
Continued ~ OpEd

Tucson
by Amanda Gradisek

So I'd never been to the Southwest when I was offered a graduate package at the University of Arizona in Tucson. After the excitement of being certain that I hadn't just wasted a thousand dollars on applying for grad school in a fit of overly optimistic self-confidence, I got on Mapquest and tried to figure out where Tucson was. I pictured a movie in which people are trekking across the Sahara on camels and began to panic even more when I discovered that it was an hour's drive from Mexico. Having lived in Northern Ohio my entire life, my idea of an arid climate was living more than five miles from Lake Erie.
Continued ~ Travel

The Contented,
The Experienced &
The E. Street Shuffle

by Rick Brown

What immediately struck me the first time I saw Bruce and the E. Street Band way back on the Born to Run tour (am I old as dirt or what?) was that the crowd was as loud when he first walked on stage as most artist's encores. This night was no different. What WAS noticeably different was the man himself. Mr. Springsteen's life has come full circle. Sure there would be a party … but there was a communion to be celebrated.
Continued ~ Music/Concerts

Holiday Cheer from Aunt Edith
(previously published in Crapshoot!)

by Rick Brown

My late Uncle Wes lived with my Aunt Edith for most of his adult life...although I'm sure it seemed like an eternity to him. He worked for the Bethlehem Steel Company in Baltimore for thirty years until he retired. He worked the night shift getting off around 7 a.m. when he would come home for dinner. In the summer when it was warm...and Baltimore can get very, very humid ... he would go to a movie matinee in an air conditioned theater and sleep. If you knew my Aunt Edith you would assume what I did ... even as a child ... and that was that Uncle Wes worked nights and went to matinees to get away from his wife. He never said much. He was a slight, wiry man of few words. And the few words he almost always uttered were, "For Chrissakes Edith! SHUDD UPP!!"

The man was almost incidental by nature. One time ... after he retired and he and Aunt Edith moved back to the Cleveland area ... my brothers and I were helping him put a refrigerator in a backyard shed because there was no room for it in the trailer they were moving into. After much jostling my brothers and I closed the shed door and thought we were finished. From her perch (as supervisor of course) Aunt Edith looked at the three of us with bewilderment and asked, "Where the HELL is Wes?" And after exchanging confused glances we heard muffled sounds coming from behind the fridge in the shed. "MMMPPPHH!!! Hey!! HHMMPPHHFFF!!!" We quickly opened the shed door, moved aside the refrigerator and liberated Uncle Wes. My brothers and I were all embarrassed and each, in turn, apologized profusely for our insensitive behavior. Aunt Edith broke into the humility with a shriek of, "What the HELL were you doing in there?" Which prompted Uncle Wes to ... once again ... chant his mantra. "For Chrissakes Edith!! SHUDD UPP!!" They were quite the loving couple. Their last name was Crabtree. I am not making this up.

Wes soon was diagnosed with lung cancer. Thirty years in the steel mills and 2 packs a day of Chesterfield non-filters caught up with him. The last time I saw him he was lying on the couch in their trailer smoking the aforementioned brand of cigarettes, quite literally coughing his lungs out ... or what was left of them. "I TOLD him to quit those goddamned things years ago. " Aunt Edith offered for my contemplation. To which Uncle Wes replied sarcastically (yep, you guessed it) "Cough cough ... For Chrissakes HACK! HACK! Edith!!! SHUDD UPPP!!!" These were the final words I heard my uncle ever say and we all joked at the funeral that these very words were more than likely chiseled into his headstone.

Continued

GUINESS FOR STRENGTH!
by Karl Gruber

I have been an aficionado of what some people call "Irish Black Gold", otherwise known as Guiness stout beer. Much to my taste bud's delight, the opportunity for me to travel to the one and only place they brew Guiness, Dublin, Ireland, was offered to me. I like Guiness so much, that the only way to describe my desire to tour the actual Guiness Brewery in Dublin would be like an Islamic person's pilgrimage to Mecca. Give me a couple 'o pints of Guiness anytime, and it always brings a contented, satisfied smile to my face. Unlike Budweiser where you feel like a six pack might get you through the afternoon's football game, you only need two pints of Guiness to relax, and you really don't need more. Two's enough. If for some strange reason you haven't had the opportunity to enjoy the creamy and smooth flavor of a pint of Guiness, the term "black gold" isn't without merit. If you hold a full glass of Guiness up to the light, not a ray will shine through, it's that black. Having finally arrived in Dublin, I soon trekked to the pub nearest my hotel and ordered my first pint. In anticipation, I sat waiting as the barkeep performed the special pouring technique required to get the perfect pint. He filled the glass three quarters of the way and sat it just out of my reach as the pour had to settle for a couple minutes. Ahh, anticipation. Finally he came back and topped off the glass to a full creamy head. As I titled back the glass to my mouth, my eyes spotted the poster behind the bar, that proclaimed, "Guiness for strength!" I soon found out that this is constantly proclaimed throughout all of Dublin's pubs. I had heard many times that the Guiness that is poured in Ireland tastes different than that which we drink here in the U.S. So it was with much surprise that I did not taste that supposed difference at all. As a matter of fact, those of you here in the States that regularly enjoy a pint of Guiness either from tap at your local pub or from their special can with the nitrogen "widget", can take solace that it tastes exactly like that in Dublin. I also heard that the Irish enjoyed Guiness warm. Now this may be true in the Irish countryside, but in Dublin, all pubs serve it cold. They now are even serving "Extra Cold" Guiness that is supposed to be 2.5 degrees centigrade colder. I was in Dublin to run the Oct. 28th. marathon, and I am proud to say that I did not break training since I had diligently trained with Guiness as my main carbohydrate nutrition. "Guiness for strength!"

When I finally arrived at the legendary St. James Gate Guiness Brewery, I almost genuflected. You can walk into most any grocery store in America and buy a four pack of Guiness, and here I was at the source of it all; The one place in the world where it is brewed. At the beginning of the tour you receive a small, clear glass oval that actually has a drop of Guiness trapped inside. This is supposed to allow you to always have a "spot 'o Guiness" with you wherever you go. As the tour wound on, I began to be a bit disappointed, because it is a self-guided tour that traverses through an already laid out path that follows and explains the brewing process and the history of Guiness. You are not in the real brewing area of the building. Fortunately, as the tour winds several flights upwards, it ends up in a bar set-up in a 360 degree glass room that is at the top of the building. Here you present your glass spot 'o Guiness, and they pour you a free pint of the black gold. So as I soaked in the best view of the city of Dublin, the surrounding countryside, and the peaks of the Wicklow Mts., I toasted a nearby stranger, and enjoyed another pint.

My cohort who had shared the tour with me said I looked like a kid in a candy store as I shopped in the Guiness Brewery gift shop afterwards. I bought so much stuff, they gave me two free Guiness t-shirts! She was right, I was a big kid in a beer candy store. When we headed away from the brewery on the bus, I suggested that we head over to Dublin's oldest pub, the Brazenhead, established in 1198, for lunch, and of course, a pint 'o Black Gold. "Guiness for strength!" Maybe this explains why the Irish term for "fun" in a pub is "Craic" (pronounced: "Crack")!