The return of Input/Output!

The title says it all hehehe

But first, a rundown of the past few days...

I now have a Meat Guy. A friend of mine works at Walmart in the meat department. He has now heard every meat-related gay joke, but more importantly he can inform me of special deals and sales before the general public knows about them! For instance, he got me a ten pound bag of chicken leg quarters for 5 bucks 0.0 That's less than half the best price I found at Costco... There are also plans to go to a huge processing plant called Minder's meats when I have some cash, Meat Guy in tow.

Speaking of when I have cash, the first things on the list for new trials include: lamb shanks, chicken liver pate, and (once again) bone marrow. I want to try the bone marrow in a different way though - maybe in a thick stew or something like that. There's also a recipe for pork shoulder boiled in milk (YUM) and steamed whole fish. I've been eying the eels in the freezer at the asian section in the grocery store... they are really loaded with fat and I loved the broiled eel sushi I've tried. Also want to try some duck again in the future - not that it would be new to me, but it is loaded with fat and very tasty. Also expensive, so I will need to get some free from hunters or go hunting myself... And duck season is several months away :/

Anyway, I got to talk to a vegetarian the other day. It was the first time I've ever had to confront someone about the way I eat. He claimed to be a vegetarian because of environmental reasons, citing land use as a major reason. Of all the reasons to be a vegetarian, I think I dislike this one the most. Essentially the solution to the land use/environmental issues is to have fewer people in the world. I don't want fewer people in the world, but I still want to eat meat. Since I live in America, where land use is essentially a non-issue, I considered that argument especially silly, but we chatted about it for a bit anyway. I tried to tell him that animals using land is a relatively efficient use of it, since grass grows almost anywhere year long and doesn't sap soil of nutrients as much as, say, corn does; meanwhile, a cornfield is harvested once a year and requires specific soil and weather conditions. We didn't come to a consensus here but we managed to move on anyway. He asked me if I was afraid of vitamin deficiencies and the host of usual questions, to which I responded flatly "no." I then showed him the nutrition data on various meats, eggs, and butter and showed him that by following a diet consisting only of them I would get almost all of the vitamins and minerals I needed in a day except vitamin C (calcium and vitamin D are the only ones that would be low if I were brave enough to eat liver, and by eating small bony fish I could fix calcium, and sunlight would fix vitamin D). I also brought up the fact that it seems that vitamin C is not necessary for low-carbohydrate diets for some reason, as the inuits show. He insisted that there must be something the body needs that you can only get from vegetables... I answered with fiber, but I haven't had any problems. I had him pretty well flustered, hopefully it will be enough to make him reconsider his vegetarianism... hahaha. No but seriously, I hope it will be enough for him to not think that meat is really bad for your health, which it is not.

As for food adventures, nothing too special except that I ate about 2 sticks of butter on thursday... I also made some teriyaki marinated chicken from the Meat Guy. I was out of ginger though, so the recipe was a bit off. There was a little honey on the marinade, but I don't think much of it ended up in the chicken. At any rate, I'm not worried about the carb content. The story is good though...

The chicken came in a bag and there were 9 leg quarters in it (included pope's noses!). They were all frozen into a truly solid block of ice and chicken parts. After letting them sit in a giant bowl of water for several hours, I managed to pry them apart. I let them thaw some more while I made the marinade. The marinade had some soy sauce, garlic, chives, honey, wine, and cloves (may have been more, but I can't remember). I stuffed the chickens into a baggy with the sauce and let them continue to thaw and marinate for half the day. Then after a long day of tutoring, I started roasting the chickens at 9:30... It was supposed to take only an hour... But 45 minutes in, my oven crapped out and cooled down to about 200 degrees. So the chickens never got above 150ish, and when I cut one of them open it was bleeding. I tried cooking the chickens more, and after giving them 25 minutes it still wasn't enough. I let the chickens "rest" for a bit (LOL cooking term!), not knowing what to do... then I decided to boil/steam them in a skillet. After 20 minutes the coldest spot was just under 160, so i decided I'd just give it a few more minutes... then lost track of time and came back about 25 minutes later and the probe was practically at 200... lol. I was pretty sure the chicken was toast, but it tasted great - I cleaned up an entire quarter and then broke open the thigh bone for the marrow - and that was amazing. Unfortunately, by the time I was done eating it was 1:30...

Basically I've decided that I need to eat more poultry, it's basically my favorite food.

H'okay, so, It's really late and I want to get this written before I forget about it so I'm going to do my best now.

INPUT
Breakfast: Half a super quiche, no bacon
Lunch: 4 eggs with hollandaise sauce, chopped up bacon, about 3 pieces
Afternoon Snack: 2 eggs basted in butter atop shredded cheese melted on half a can of tuna, 2 very small pieces of ham, all topped with the remainder of the hollandaise from lunch
Very Late Dinner: One chicken leg quarter, marinated in a clove teriyaki sauce (end result was very little added anything)
Throughout the day, times unspecified: about 1 cup of milk and about 4 cups of tea, an americano with a little half and half

OUTPUT
One mid-morning, nothing abnormal

Success!