Getting Some Tail

Due to circumstances previously discussed, I have had quite a lot of oxtail sitting tantalizingly in my freezer for quite some time now. I figured it was only fair to provide an update on their status. I tried cooking the small batch of oxtail in my crockpot within a few weeks, but the results were...less than stellar. The flavor was excellent, but the meat came out rather tough, dry, and pretty much the opposite of what slow-cooked meat is supposed to be. I talked to some people online who said that results like mine were common. Apparently--in bold defiance of my original enthusiasm--crock pots are not the best for slow-cooking meat. They're not bad, but if I wanted to get real amazing results, I'd have to step it up a notch. Thus it was with hope and trepidation that I asked for a dutch oven for Christmas.

Ron Swanson: Man of the People, Man of the Paleo

There is a meme I have noticed spreading across the paleo online community. What's interesting about it is that I have seen it arise independently in multiple sources (and not to be all meme-hipster about it, but I thought of it myself long before I saw it repeated online). The idea is simply this: Ron Swanson, the stoic, square-ish-jawed, and proudly rugged boss on NBC's Parks and Recreation is perhaps the best paleo hero in the modern pop-culture canon.

He's not actually identified as being paleo on the show, but he espouses many values that paleo viewers seem to find common cause with. There are three main categories that I have observed:

How I Know I Am Now An Adult

I seem to have reached the age of my life where I get really excited about kitchen-y things. Even before I went paleo; in the last couple years I found myself getting gradually more excited by shopping for things like ceramic dish sets and flatware. Now that I am actually learning to cook, places like William Sonoma and Sur la Table are favored destinations instead of blind spots on my mental shopping map. Thus, I resigned myself to the inevitable process of aging when I filled up my Christmas list this year with kitchen supplies and cooking gadgets.

Technical Changes inc.

I am in the process of making some major technical changes to the hosting of this site over the next two weeks, please excuse any interruptions.

Workout of the Week: Christmas Tree Hunting

One of the popular regular features on Marks Daily Apple is the Workout of the Week. They provide a wide variety of activities to keep you engaged with your workouts, but what I enjoy about them is that their movements are often inspired by real activities (from housework to aurochs-hunting). This approach keeps in line with the paleo-popular philosophies of MovNat, an approach to exercise based entirely on naturalistic movements and activities and something I must admit I am very curious about but have yet to look into deeply.

But the general gist I have taken to heart is this: find and take advantage of exercise opportunities in everyday life, and revel in them rather than be repulsed by them.

Thus as my mom's pickup truck, packed with all four members of my nuclear family, wound its way up a one-lane road crowded with cars and their bagged Christmas-tree quarry in the Santa Cruz mountains last weekend, I didn't dread the mud and the heavy lifting and the cold; instead, I looked forward to a new and unusual activity, even more the unusual for the fact that my family was doing it together.

Least Kosher Thing Ever: The Sandwich

This week, it came to my attention that one of my coworkers--who is a local improv comedian and actor in Boston--has had a recurring gig on commercials for a local sandwich place. I decided to share the most recent commercial here for two reasons: 1) it's an amusing continuation of the theme of Least Kosher Thing Ever started in my post about my Mexican meal a week or so back, and 2) even if you don't know Ryan, it's pretty funny, so I'm doing my best to make him a viral internet star. Tell your friends.

(PS: Conveniently, Ryan is the one so amusingly freeze-framed in the video-still above)

"Pretty much the least-Kosher food ever"

Yesterday I went out to lunch with some coworkers. A favorite lunch destination is Celias Mexican Restaurant, a Bay-Area local chain (and possibly one location in Idaho?) of mid-scale Mexican family restaurants. It is a pretty good place, and I have enjoyed going there in the past. Problem is, of course, that so much of the best parts of Mexican food is built upon corn and beans and rice and other non-paleo things. Le sigh.

As I perused the menu, though, my eye caught upon a special that seemed too awesomely-bizarre to be true: shrimp, wrapped in bacon, covered in jack cheese. It also supposedly had jalapenos on top, so it sounded like Paleo Nachos (give or take the cheese). So I gave it a shot.

Result? Pretty good. Who knows what kind of oil the bacon-shrimp were fried in, but they were crispy and flavorful. The cheese was...plentiful...to say the least, and frankly I started to regret it after just a couple shrimp.

So if you find yourself at such an establishment, the dish is worth a shot, but I would recommend holding the cheese, whether you are dairy-friendly or not.