Stix ‘n Brix

The removal of the wand over Spaceship Earth is under way. Here’s what it looked like yesterday:

Although I wasn’t initially a fan of the structure, it grew on me over the years, and without it the Golf Ball will seem barren to me. 

Actually, I think dismantling should stop right where it is, and a series of replaceable tops created, to be changed out with the seasons and event. Some examples: 

• A golf club, during major tournaments
• A snow shovel, to remind Winter visitors what they’ve escaped.
• A flower or a garden trowel, during the Flower & Garden festival
• A spatula, or fork, or kabob, or wine glass, during the Food & Wine festival.
• A turkey drumstick at Thanksgiving, followed quickly by
• A candy cane, for Christmas

Any other ideas? C’mon, let’s hear ‘em.

As Independence Day approaches, Peggy Noonan’s insightful piece in The Wall Street Journal provides food for thought for Americans, new and old alike.

Bacon is one of life’s great guilty pleasures, but the standard 1-pound package is way too much for one or two people. Our need is for anywhere from two slices (fresh bacon bits are a great garnish for a batch of fresh cooked spinach) to five or six slices when accompanying a pancake breakfast. At our house we eat bacon so seldom that even it’s long refrigerator life isn’t sufficient for us to consume a full pound.

We tried breaking a package into breakfast-sized packs and then freezing those, but that didn’t help when all we needed were a couple of strips for spinach. Besides, pancake breakfasts are typically a last-minute treat so the need to defrost before cooking was an inconvenience.

In recent years pre-cooked bacon has appeared in stores. It’s very convenient, but way too expensive for the convenience, and the selection is limited. Why couldn’t we do that ourselves? We can, and we do. Yesterday we bought a couple of pounds of Oscar Mayer on sale. I fired up my trusty pan and cooked up the entire mess  layering the cooked strips between paper towels on a platter.

Once drained and partially cooled I put the stack into the freezer for about an hour. Then I simply peeled the now-stiff strips from the towels and popped them into a heavy-duty zip-top freezer bag. Since they were frozen separately they won’t stick together in the bag. All we have to do is remove as many strips as the occasion calls for and zing them for a few seconds in the microwave, just enough to heat them up.

Let’s not forget about the bacon grease. A teaspoon or so does wonders for that spinach. While the bacon is cooking I cut 6-inch square pieces of foil and press them into a muffin tin as liners. Into each cup is poured the drippings from a five or six strip batch of bacon. The entire tin is placed in the freezer until the grease has frozen into solid pucks. The foil is folded to enclose, and the entire batch of pucks is frozen in another zip-top bag.

The technique of bacon-frying is becoming a lost art, but I think pan-fried bacon tastes much better than microwaved. I like my bacon chewy-crisp, with (nearly) all the fat cooked off, but not so crisp that it fractures before bending. For those with the same preferences, here follows my technique.

The ideal bacon-frying pan is a nonstick with a lot of mass. This gives the most constant, even heat. A 12-inch diameter fry pan holds up to 6 stips without crowding. Pre-heat the pan over a large burner at dead-center medium heat, 5 on a scale of 10. Avoid the temptation to quick-preheat at a higher setting. You want the pan’s temperature distribution to be as even as possible.

Lay your strips into the pan putting the first strips near the outside and working in towrds the center. The edges will always be colder, so you’ll want those strips to have those few extra seconds of cooking. Temperature control is important: There should be a gentle sizzling, but no big pops or spatters. Adjust your burner setting accordingly.

Once five or six strips are comfortably in the pan, put on a spatter guard if you have one and just WALK AWAY. Resist the temptation to fiddle with things.

In about a minute it will be time to shift the center pieces to the edges and the outer strips to the center. It is NOT time to turn them over yet. Just rearrange them to even out the cooking.

In about another minute the first side will just be starting to brown. (Don’t go by the clock, go by the look.) Now is the time for the first of two turns, before the first side is done.

The second side will brown up much faster. When it’s a beautiful medium-brown with just a few specks of dark, turn again, and also rearrange outer strips to inner again as you do.

In just a few seconds, almost immediately as you turn the last strip, the first strips will be done. Remove all the strips to drain on paper towels for about a minute, then turn them over to drain the other side. Put a paper towel on top, for the next batch.

When cooking multiple batches, I use a silicone spatula to scrape any brown bits and as much grease as possible from the pan into my muffin-tin “puck molds”.

Every batch is different, but once you find the right heat level don’t mess with it. Best and easiest is to adjust cooking time by using your eyes.

Three hundred dollar video game consoles. Forty dollars and up for a three-hour round of golf. And have you priced fuel at the marina lately? Who can afford to have fun anymore?

Fortunately, there are still great ways to spend your leisure time that are cheap, fun, and even rewarding. Here’s my list of the top five ways to have fun on a tiny budget.

5. Radio Control Models Technology and a major shift in marketing have transformed radio controlled (or R/C) models from costly, hard-to-build, finicky machines into inexpensive, ready to run playthings that anyone can fly, drive or sail. New high-efficiency electric motors and tiny digital radios have made possible self-stabilizing helicopters and airplanes tiny enough to fly in your living room. There are also R/C cars and trucks, boats, tanks and even hovercraft, all with prices starting well under $100.00.

4. Cross Stitch The most popular form of needlecraft, counted cross stitch, has been joined by new variants like the simpler no-count cross stitch and punch needle, which is easy enough for a young child to do. Stamped cross stitch kits print the pattern right on the fabric. When complete, simply launder your project and the pattern washes away. There are literally thousands of kits and patterns available, ranging from tiny ornaments to sull-sized quilts

3. Coin Collecting Perhaps the oldest, most widely enjoyed hobby on the planet. The U.S. Mint has jumped on the coin collecting bandwagon with its wildly popular Stathood Quarter series and its new Presidential Dollar coins. Coin collectng is easy, rewarding, and requires almost no special equipment. Keep your collection in inexpensive “flips” or luxuriant albums, the choice is yours.

2. Stamp Collecting Like coin collecting, is a hobby that’s part activity, part investment. Today’s postage stamps are tiny works of art, windows on the culture, people and events of our world. Also like coin collecting, basic costs are very low. A good album costs under $50.00, and will take years to fill. You can build your collection easily and cheaply by buying packets of assorted stamps, then reselling the ones you don’t want on Ebay

1. Scale Modeling The grand-daddy of the hobby industry is still going strong. New laser-cut technology for wood models, precision molding and casting for plastic and metal parts make model kits more realistic and easier to assemble than ever. There are lots of new subjects, too, including motorcycles, exotic cars and the latest high-tech aircraft. With hundreds of kits priced under $20.00, model kits provide reqarding entertainment for just pennies per hour

These hobbies aren’t only affordable, they’re social. There are numerous local clubs and online chat groups in support of each. You’ll meet real people, not anonymous avatars, from all over the world.

People just like you.

This article was composed as part a Problogger.net group writing project.