What to do - January 29, 2024
I've got a lotta recommendations for you people. And now, you're gonna hear about it!
I know this is something of a sports blog, but there’s not a ton of sports going on at this exact moment, so I wanted to try something that has been in the back of my mind for a while. I have recommendations and I will occasionally throw a bunch of them together in a post. Let’s call it “What to do”…
What to make
Look, you’re lucky I haven’t made this whole substack into a cooking blog (yet). I love to cook almost as much as I love to eat. And most of the people I talk to think that cooking is a lot more difficult than it is.
I have four speeds for cooking:
Pasta
Smoked meat (Summertime only)
Crock pot (Closed in the summer)
Something that can be made really fast because I forgot to come up with a dinner plan
Today’s what to make is….
Pressure Cooker Spicy Pork Shoulder
Since it’s January, we’re going to go with one of my favorite crock pot recipes (I don’t think I’ve ever made it in the pressure cooker but I bet I will some day when I forget to start this one in the morning). This one is so good that I have neighbors that ask me to inform them when I make it, in case they can trade me something for the leftovers.
Yes, it requires you to buy rice wine vinegar and fish sauce (the other ingredients are pretty easy to replace, if needed), but you’ll need them again for the next time you make this or any other Asian dish.
This dish is pork perfection. It’s salty, it’s spicy, it’s fatty and even has just a hint of sweetness. You’ll be licking the bowl clean at the end of the meal.
PRO TIP: You’re probably not going to find a 5 lb pork shoulder on the shelf. Go to the butcher and ask them if they can give you one that’s about that size or a little smaller.
What to buy
I discovered these watching TikTok earlier this year. A garbage truck driver got popular by eating a head of lettuce for lunch every day and posting videos of it. He would mix it up by putting different toppings on the lettuce. He implored his viewers to go get the crispy jalapeños, so I gave them a shot and am now addicted.
If I could give an award for my condiment of the year, this would win. I currently just poured the crumbs of my most recently-acquired bag into some reheated chicken tortilla soup but it goes on everything. It adds texture, a bit of spice and that delicious jalapeño flavor.
What to listen to
I stumbled into the below album a couple weeks ago. From what I can gather, this was recorded on the roof of Jimi Hendrix’s famed Electric Lady Studios in NYC during COVID lockdowns.
It’s a really good album. It’s also pretty short. I don’t even consider myself a big Bleachers fan but the 3-song run from Chinatown (with Bruce Springsteen) through Big Life is just so much fun.
I listen to music on headphones when I’m cleaning dishes (remember, I like to cook) and my wife walked in on me the other night dancing my ass off to “How Dare You Want More” and I would do it again. The vibes here are great, which is wild for an album that I think was born out of a pandemic.
What to watch
I haven’t had a ton of time in the past few years to watch a lot of TV or movies, despite loving them, so my recommendations will get better here with time. Right now I’m watching through The Mandalorian, which I never watched past season 1 before, and I don’t know if I can (in good conscience) recommend doing that.
Instead, I want to drive more attention to this interview Jon Stewart did with AOC last week. I thought it was one of the more interesting, and potentially hopeful, political conversations I had heard in a while.
What to do
Read! Seriously, we need everyone who has the ability to do so to start reading again. We’ve given up so much ground to the internet and smartphones and social media that a lot of people, myself included, all but stopped reading.
I made it a point, a few months ago, to try and replace time spent on my phone with time spent reading. I feel like it has given me a bit more balance, made my wits a little stronger, and given me good conversations to have with friends and family beyond “I saw a funny thing on the internet.”
Here’s a book I bought today: The Sirens’ Call (If you don’t have money to be buying books, I highly recommend getting a library card and tying it to the Libby app)
Hilariously enough, it is about how the internet and smartphones have played upon our basic human instincts to win the battle for attention. And, I assume, it will discuss that taking that attention back will help with *motions to everything*.
Thanks for reading and supporting. Take care of yourselves.