This came out a couple of years ago; take a look at some of the local wildlife and maybe you’ll understand why I don’t like to swim in the ocean.
West Coast of Vancouver Island an 80lb Octopus Doflieni – Giant Pacific Octopus, tentacle spread of 16ft, charges an underwater robot (ROV)and wraps a tentacle around the vehicles manipulator claw, in full reverse the ROV blasts the octopus away with thruster/propeller wash.
‘Round these parts I am the dishwasher, but I recall the glory days when I had one of these handy, if energy-spendthriftish, machines. It did indeed make a nice poached salmon, as the Surreal Gourmet claims and every BCer could tell you.
Actually, the best alternative use of a dishwasher was the one the techs at Starbucks came up with. When the dishwashers died (as they all must) they converted them into salmon smokers, and they worked beautifully, too. Wood chips in the engine compartment, salmon on the racks, the whole thing clad in airtight stainless steel; it was perfect.
In any case, here, via BoingBoing, is the immortal “How to Poach a Salmon in Your Dishwasher” recipe, from the Surreal Gourmet.
Poaching fish in the dishwasher is a virtually
foolproof way to shock your friends, prepare a succulent meal and do the dishes — all at the same time. I’ve poached salmon in more than 100 dishwashers on three continents. There’s never been a dull party.
It all started with the release of my last book, The Surreal Gourmet Entertains. To promote it, I traveled the globe throwing spontaneous dinner parties wherever I could rustle up a kitchen and a willing audience. The hazard of having a good publicist, however, is that guests tend to arrive with impossibly high expectations. Instead of trying to compete with their fantasies, I countered by turning an urban legend into a practical cooking method. My kitchen resembled a mad laboratory as I pushed my dishwasher well beyond the uses covered by its limited warranty. With a minimum of collateral damage, the process of testing and tweaking the following technique was good fun and yielded results that even surprised me.
As it happens, salmon’s very forgiving. Although temperature and cycle durations vary with each machine, a little more or less “washing” doesn’t greatly affect the results. To heighten the drama — and prove that you have nothing up your sleeve — let your dinner guests crowd around the dishwasher when you load the fish. Then, when the cycle’s complete, invite them back to witness the unloading.
Here’s all you need to know to set your doubts aside, put dinner in the dishwasher and watch your multitasking kitchen appliance steal the show.
They’d rather let their crops rot on the trees than respond to the market forces and increase their wages. There is no labour shortage in the US fruit picking labour market; there is a gap between the asking price for labour and the price the farmers are willing to pay.
It is much the same in Canada, although instead of Mexicans we have migrant Quebecois. They smoke almost as much pot, but they complain about the climate less, as you would, too, if you were from James Bay or some godforsaken spot.
In the Fraser Valley, just outside of Vancouver, there have
been several convictions over the past decade for slavery, as well as numerous housing infractions (it is Canada; insulation and roofs are advisable and may be compulsory, imagine that!), assault (beating) charges, one murder that I can recall, as well as several cases of holding workers’ children or elderly parents captive until their work contract was up. Passports? Oh yeah, they keep the passports, too, which is one reason they’re not getting so many immigrants who want to work in this industry; the word has gone around India, and now the farmers are whining loudly about uppity brown people.
Which brings us back to the Americans:
“It’s a laborer’s market right now. My pickers all look at me and say, ‘How much are you going to pay?‘ ” he said. “They all have cell phones, and all they have to do is call up the road and see if anybody else is paying a little more.”
Farmers in that situation are left to decide whether it’s even worth picking the fruit, or just letting it rot, said Dan Fazio, director of employer services for the Washington state Farm Bureau.
“I can fill 10,000 jobs at $15 an hour right now,” he
said. “And we knew this was going to happen. We’ve been warning people for years.”
Farmers across the West for years have complained about a labor shortage to harvest their fruits, vegetables and other crops. Critics have always discounted those claims, saying farmers who pay higher wages have plenty of help.
“At some point, it’s like the boy who cried wolf,” said David Groves, spokesman for the Washington State Labor Council. “It’s just that, at different points in time, we’ve heard this, and we’ve seen evidence that there’s not a labor shortage. There’s just an unwillingness to pay decent wages.”
And I stand by it to this day!
Terminal City is a home for my observations from and about the Downtown EastSide of Vancouver. It is not affiliated with that zine [now deceased] or the snobby club downtown.All rights reserved, in fact, all rights revert to me including the right to own property. I’d like some, please. You can email it if you have a broadband connection, right?
You are welcome to read and to forward from the blog as long as you properly list me as the source. Forwarding or appropriating content from this blog without properly crediting the source indicates your acceptance of the fact that I will remove both your right AND left legs, slowly.
Have a happy!
Much as I hate people who evilly try to get something for nothing, I must say I have nothing whatsoever against people who try to do what they can within the rules because they’re having fun with it; that’s a big difference.
These guys are having too damn much fun. Behold the Ghetto Big Mac! I suppose the Brits would call it a Big Butty or something; sure to be equally popular with black men.
Via The Vancouverite.
raincoaster 