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The Daily Dose/November 23, 2007
By Gaylon Kent
The Writer's Shack
   
The usual notes from around the human experience, including our first ever Capsule Stuffing Review, On This Date, some of our sailors spending the holiday at sea with Mary Palm and her five sisters instead of getting their ashes hauled in Hong Kong, plus The Column Four Foto: Rachel Ray
CAPSULE STUFFING REVIEW: White Castle Stuffing: Anticipation here at Writer's Shack headquarters officially was High as these two American stalwarts, Thanksgiving and White Castles, collided in The Woman's kitchen. My own, personal anticipation level fell a tad short of achieving and maintaining a state of arousal, but not by much because my adoration for both White Castles and stuffing is off the charts.
Ingredients List: Ten White Castles (sans pickles), 1.5 cups chopped celery, 1.25 tablespoons ground thyme, 1.5 tablespoons ground sage, .75 teaspoons black pepper and one-quarter cup chicken broth. Crumble the White Castles up, throw in the thyme, sage and pepper and add the chicken broth as you're stirring everything together to keep everything moist. This will produce enough stuffing for a 10-12 pound turkey, and if you don't want to stuff it, you can bake it in a 2.5 quart casserole dish for an hour at 350 degrees.
Dry, Technical Matter: Since we, tragically, live 1,500 miles from the nearest White Castles in eastern Missouri, we used White Castles from our grocers freezer, which are actually pretty good if you're enjoying them on your own if you follow the directions that do not involve the microwave! Microwaved White Castles are utterly without merit, but if you take your time and use the oven and put water in the broiler pan, you can have a satisfactory White Castle experience. Nothing's as good as White Castle's enjoyed at a real White Castle, of course, but they're pretty darned close.
Can We Get Back On Message Here? But we digress, because you do not need to cook your White Castles for the stuffing recipe, merely thaw them out.
Hold On, Wait A Second: There are White Castle restaurants in 13 states, mainly in the Midwest, though some can be found in the South and East, and you can buy White Castles at grocery stores in most states, except Montana, Wyoming and the Dakotas, New England (except Massachusetts) and, for some reason, West Virginia.
Standard Internet Disclaimer: Though Gaylon is better fed than most, he is not Chef Emeril or the Galloping Gourmet for Pete's sake - though he does have the hots for Rachel Ray (who The Woman says is gaining weight though, one, i don't see it, and, two, don't care) - and certainly is not a professional food reviewer. Reviews are based on his own personal tastes, are completely subjective and not measured against established culinary standards.
We Interrupt This Program For A Word From The Ratings Department: Following Is The Official Writer's Shack Rating scale:
EX - Excellent; as good as the medium can produce in every respect.
VG - Very Good; well worth your time.
AR - All Right; not completely without merit.
SP - A steaming pile, utterly without merit and not worth your time, my time or anyone else's time.
Official Rating: AR. Honestly, we love White Castles so much you could have taken a sack of sliders, mixed them with some ground field mouse and deep fried them in motor oil and we would probably give them a passable rating. They're that good. But, for some reason, and we probably shouldn't be surprised, we found ourselves comparing it not to other stuffing's, but to White Castles themselves, which isn't entirely fair to White Castle stuffing, but it's our column, so there.
But it's good stuffing, make no mistake about it. All those other ingredients, holiday stuffing staples one and all, just interfere with the inherent perfection of the individual White Castle, however. The Woman, who had her first real White Castles earlier this year, and I discussed it and decided that while White Castle stuffing certainly has merit, in the future we will show proper respect for a slider and enjoy them as nature intended: in large quantities, with onion rings and chicken rings.
Strong Finishing Kick: Otherwise the official Writer's Shack Thanksgiving Feast was probably very similar to yours, though I will point out someone went completely overboard and made enough mashed potatoes to feed an aircraft carrier, and The Woman's homemade cranberry sauce is better than anything your woman can make.
ON THIS DATE: In 1936, Life magazine is published for the first time. The original Life magazine was a humor and general interest magazine that published from 1883 through 1936, when it was bought by Time magazine founder Henry Luce so he could use the name for his new magazine. Life would go on to become an iconic feature of the American landscape until the late 60's when circulation and revenues began to decline, and would cease publication as a weekly in 1972, appear intermittently until 1978, as a monthly magazine from 1978 until 2000, and, as a weekly newspaper supplement from 2004 until April of this year.
In 1954: The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above the peak it had reached before the 1929 stock market crash for the first time since the crash.
Hut, Hut, Hike: In 1895 Pitt and West Virginia meet in football for the first time. Known as the Backyard Brawl, it will be played for the 100th time on Dec. 1. Pitt leads the series 59-37-3.
GREAT MOMENTS IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS: On Wednesday China, still snitty over the US awarding a medal to the evil Dali Lama, plus some relatively minor disagreements over trade and Iran's nuclear program, denied entry into Hong Kong to the USS Kitty Hawk and its battle group for a scheduled four-day visit.
A decision to deny sober, horny US sailors four days of liberty in Hong Kong has repercussions that reach far and wide. One, Hong Kong "merchants" lose out on four days of thousands of sailors with money to blow drinking, eating and whoring, which doesn't please the sailors any more than it pleases Hong Kong "merchants". Two, the families of sailors who had flown to Hong Kong to spend the holiday with their loved one take it in the shorts because their loved one turned around and headed back to their homeport near Tokyo.
PARTING THOUGHT: While we seldom watch tee vee here at the Writer's Shack, we're as American as anybody else and we were looking forward to enjoying a couple of good football games on Thanksgiving. Instead, we were treated to two snoozers, literally, because we got a nap in during the first half of the Jets/Cowboys snorefest.
What the heck's up with Bret Favre? He's 110 and playing like he's 80 again, setting a Packer record for most consecutive completions (20) and throwing for 381 yards and three touchdowns as the Pack moved to 10-1, defeating the Lions 37-26.
Scoreboard, Baby: The Lions showed some late, cursory interest, pulling to within eight, but somebody woke Favre up and he led the Packers to a tide-stemming field goal and the Lions, who were once 6-2, have now lost three straight.
Meanwhile: Can we get some flex-scheduling on Thanksgiving? Because forcing-feeding the two-win New York Jets to the country on a day when we're already stuffed to the gills is dangerous. Dallas, who are 10-1 and are saved from officially becoming annoying again because of their folksy, likeable coach Wade Phillips, won 34-3, and CBS announcer Jim Nance, who's never done blowouts well, left everyone looking for a late-afternoon pick me up. Thank goodness we had JB, Terry and the gang on the post-game show waiting for us. That helped.
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