Well Rested Sirloin Roast

Cooking a roast can be a bit frightening for the novice cook. Beef roast cost money! However they can be a wonderful way to warm up the house with comfort and old fashioned taste. The left-overs fill casseroles, pasta dishes, even salads. The key is to let your meat rest!

Remember these steps for a roast: Let your meat rest often!

Rub with seasonings, wrap with plastic, rest in refrigerator. Unwrap and let it rest to come to room temperature. Cook in a lower temp oven then turn it off and rest another 20 minutes still in oven, pull it out and let it rest some more. This will should allow the beef to settle and reabsorb its juices, leaving you with a tasty, fork tender and juicy piece of meat.

Ingredients

1 beef sirloin roast, about 2 – 3 lbs

1 large onion, sliced into 1 inch thick rings

For the rub

2 Tbs coffee

2 Tbs dark brown sugar

1 Tbs smoky paprika

1 Tbs mustard powder

1 Tbs salt

1 tsp pepper

1 tsp each: rosemary + coriander + thyme

Directions:

The day before you're going to be cooking your roast, mix all the rub ingredients into a bowl.

Run a wet paper towel over the counter and lay out a large sheet of plastic wrap. (the moisture will hold it in place)

Pour our almost half of the rub and spread it out to make a bed for the roast. Place the meat on this and continue to pour and press the remainder of rub onto all surfaces of the meat.

Roll up the plastic around it and maybe a second piece wrapping the other way to seal. Place in a bowl or rimed container in the refrigerator overnight. This way it can't make a mess in there. It's first resting.

When you are ready to cook your roast, remove it from fridge, unwrap the meat from the plastic wrap, and tie it up nice and tight with butcher’s twine if it looks loose. Let it rest on counter top to come to room temperature.

Allow a 2-3 lb roast to sit at room temperature for a good hour. Its second resting.

Preheat oven to 325°F.

Line and spray a 9 x 14 baking dish. Slice up the onion into thick slices and spread them on the bottom of the dish. These will make a natural “rack” to hold the meat up and let the air circulate as it roasts and imparts a wonderful flavor to the meat. Place roast on top of onions. You need the onion covered by the roast or they will burn. 

Bake the roast uncovered for about 15 minutes per pound, or until a meat thermometer inserted in the thickest part of the roast reads about 120°F .

(always go by the temperature. use the time only to estimate.) In this case with 2.5 lbs of meat we estimated 40 minutes.

Turn your oven off, and leave it in the oven for another 20 to 40 minutes, or until that meat thermometer reads: 130°F for rare,

145°F for medium-rare,

150°F for medium. This is its third resting.

Take the roast out of the oven and allow it to rest for an additional 20 minutes, lightly tented with a piece of foil. A fourth resting.

Then, transfer the roast to a cutting board, remove the twine, carve, and serve.

This gives plenty of time to prepare the other vegetables, during the final resting of the meat.

For our music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-jdhorGtQI

What a hearty man pleasing, old fashioned country meal for Master!

socialslave

To satisfy and restore.

To nourish, support and maintain.

To gratify, spoil, comfort and please,

to nurture, assist, and sustain

…..I cook!

Please buy slave's cookbook:

The Little Black Book of Indiscreet Recipes by Dan White http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F315Y4I/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_vAT4sb0934RTM via @amazon

Takei Cranberry Chicken Salad

Here we have a quick to throw together salad that is unique in its taste. We celebrate LGBT Hero George Takei tonight, read a short story about him after the recipe. It will start a nice dinner conversation.

Tonight's chicken salad is lightened by using non-fat Yogurt to stretch the mayonnaise. Instead of celery, we use red onion, grated carrot, pickle relish and sweeten it with dried cranberries.

Ingredients:

2 cups roasted chicken breast, cubed

½ cup plain non-fat Greek style Yogurt

½ cup low fat mayonnaise

2 Tbs mustard

½ cup sweetened dried cranberries

2 Tbs sweet pickle relish

4 hard-boiled eggs, peeled and chopped

¼ cup red onion

1 carrot, grated.

1 tablespoon vinegar

1 Tablespoon (to 2 Tablespoons) Brown Sugar

Salt + pepper To Taste

Directions:

Blend the yogurt with the mayonnaise and mustard. Mix in vinegar and brown sugar. Taste to adjust with salt & pepper.

In a large bowl mix the onion, eggs, and sweet pickle relish. Add the cranberries and carrot, spoon in the chicken until well mixed. 

Refrigerate until flavors are well blended, about 4 hours to overnight. 

What an interesting take on an old classic.

For our music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXfNGRcDYpM

A summer lunch for my Master Indy

socialslave

To satisfy and restore.

To nourish, support and maintain.

To gratify, spoil, comfort and please,

to nurture, assist, and sustain

…..I cook!

Please buy slave's cookbook:

The Little Black Book of Indiscreet Recipes by Dan White http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F315Y4I/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_vAT4sb0934RTMvia @amazon

==========================================

George Takei

George Takei is best known for his portrayal of Mr. Sulu in the acclaimed television and film series Star Trek. He's an actor, social justice activist, social media mega-power, New York Times bestselling author, originated the role of Sam Kimura and Ojii-Chan in the Broadway musical Allegiance, and subject of To Be Takei, a documentary on his life and career.

Takei's acting career has spanned five decades, with more than 40 feature films and hundreds of television guest-starring roles to his credit.

George Takei was born Hosato Takei in 1937 in Los Angeles, California.

His father named him George after King George VI of England, whose coronation took place in 1937, shortly after Takei's birth. 

With the outbreak of World War II, Takei and his family were placed behind the barbed-wire enclosures of United States internment camps along with 120,000 other Japanese Americans.

In 1942, the Takei family was forced to live in the converted horse stables of Santa Anita Park before being sent to the Rohwer War Relocation Center for internment in Rohwer, Arkansas. He spent most of his childhood in the swamps of Arkansas The family was later transferred to the Tule Lake War Relocation Center in California.

At the end of World War II, Takei and his family returned to Los Angeles.

Upon graduation from high school, Takei enrolled in the University of California, Berkeley, where he studied architecture. Later, he transferred to the University of California, Los Angeles, where he received a Bachelor of Arts in theater in 1960 and a Master of Arts in theater in 1964. He also attended the Shakespeare Institute at Stratford-upon-Avon in England, and Sophia University in Tokyo. In Hollywood, he studied acting at the Desilu Workshop.

Takei began his career in Hollywood in the late 1950s, providing voiceover for characters in the English dubbing of the Japanese monster films Rodan,

and Godzilla Raids Again.

He appeared in the anthology television series Playhouse 90 and the Perry Mason episode "The Case of the Blushing Pearls".

Takei has appeared alongside such actors as Frank Sinatra in Never So Few , Richard Burton in Ice Palace, Jeffrey Hunter in Hell to Eternity, Alec Guinness in A Majority of One, Cary Grant in Walk, Don't Run.

In 1965, producer Gene Roddenberry cast Takei as astrosciences physicist Sulu in the second pilot for the original Star Trek television series. When the series was accepted by NBC, Takei continued in the role of Sulu, who was now the ship's helmsman.

It was intended that Sulu's role be expanded in the second season, but Takei's role in The Green Berets (1968) as Captain Nim, a South Vietnamese Army officer alongside John Wayne's character, took him away from Star Trek filming and he only appeared in half the episodes of that season. Walter Koenig as Pavel Chekov substituted for him in the other episodes. When Takei returned, the two men had to share a dressing room and a single episode script. Takei admitted in an interview that he initially felt threatened by Koenig's presence, but later grew to be friends with him as the image of the officers sharing the ship's helm panel side-by-side became iconic.

Takei has since appeared in numerous television and film productions, reprising his role as Sulu in Star Trek: The Animated Series from 1973 to 1974, and in the first six Star Trek films. Today, he is a regular on the science fiction convention circuit throughout the world. He has also acted and provided voice acting for several science fiction computer games, including Freelancer and numerous Star Trek games. In 1996, in honor of the 30th anniversary of Star Trek, he reprised his role as Captain Hikaru Sulu on an episode of Star Trek: Voyager.

He featured in a lead role in an episode of The Twilight Zone ("The Encounter".

He guest-starred in an episode of Mission: Impossible during that show's first season in 1966. He also appeared in two Jerry Lewis comedies, The Big Mouth and Which Way to the Front. In 1969 Takei narrated the documentary The Japanese Sword as the Soul of the Samurai.

Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley later appointed Takei to the board of directors of the Southern California Rapid Transit District, making him part of the team that initiated and planned the Los Angeles subway system. Takei was called away from the set of Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 1978 to cast the tie-breaking vote for the creation of the Los Angeles subway system. He served on the board from 1973 to 1984.

He also appeared as a sadistic Japanese POW camp commander in the World War II film Return from the River Kwai (1989). 

As an author, Takei's first book, his autobiography, To the Stars, was published in 1994; and in 2012 and 2013 he published his second and third books, Oh Myyy! There Goes The Internet, and its sequel, Lions And Tigers And Bears: The Internet Strikes Back. The latter two books explored his forays on social media and the Internet, earning placement on the Amazon e-book and paperback best-seller lists in 2012 and 2013, respectively.

In October 2005, Takei revealed in an issue of Frontiers magazine that he is gay and had been in a committed relationship with his partner, Brad Altman, for 18 years.

"It's not really coming out, which suggests opening a door and stepping through. It's more like a long, long walk through what began as a narrow corridor that starts to widen."Nevertheless, Takei's sexuality had been an open secret among Star Trek fans since the 1970s, and Takei did not conceal his active membership in LGBT organizations, including Frontrunners. 

On May 16, 2008, Takei announced that he and Brad Altman would be getting married. They were the first same-sex couple to apply for a marriage license in West Hollywood.

They were married at the Democracy Forum of the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, of which Takei is one of the founders and serves as a member of its board of trustees. Walter Koenig was his best man, and Nichelle Nichols, was "best woman". 

Mashable.com named George a "social media superstar" on Facebook in 2012, where he currently has over 19.6 million combined fans. In 2013, Takei won the Shorty Award for Distinguished Achievement in Internet Culture. He has 2.8 million followers on Twitter, and posts on various social media platforms. He expanded his internet presence with the 2015 YouTube series, "It Takeis Two," starring with husband, Brad Takei. The "reality" series shared the couple's daily navigation of their world, with George's vibrant sense of humor and Brad's less-than-optimistic pragmatism.

In 2015, Cosmopolitan Magazine named Takei "One of the Internet's 50 Most Fascinating People."

Takei currently serves as a spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign "Coming Out Project". In 2006 he embarked on a nationwide "Equality Trek" speaking tour sharing his life as a gay Japanese American, his 18-year relationship with Altman, Frontrunners, and Star Trek, encouraging others to share their own personal stories.

In May 2011, in response to a Tennessee State Legislature bill that prohibited school teachers or students from using any language that alludes to the existence of homosexuality (the "Don't Say Gay" bill), Takei released another PSA in which he offered up his name, suggesting that people could just substitute that for 'gay'. For example, they could support Takei Marriage or watch Takei Pride Parades; or even use slurs like That's so Takei. 

In 2012, Takei starred in the musical Allegiance, which Takei described as his legacy project. The show is based on Takei's own experiences and research into the Japanese American internment of World War II. Allegiance debuted on Broadway on November 8, 2015, to mixed reviews. The Guardian said it was "unexceptional though often affecting"; The New York Times praised the "well-intentioned and polished" play for tackling a difficult subject while trying at the same time to entertain its audience, but said Allegiance "struggles to balance both ambitions, and doesn't always find an equilibrium". USA Today called Allegiance "as corny as Kansas in August and as obvious as Lady Gaga on a red carpet. But darned if it won't get a grip on your heartstrings."

Takei is a proponent of LGBT rights and is active in state and local politics. He has won several awards and accolades in his work on human rights and Japan–United States relations, including his work with the Japanese American National Museum.

In January 2014, Jennifer Kroot's documentary film about Takei, To Be Takei, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.

He also has a lengthy record of public service through his involvement with organizations such as the Japanese American Citizens League and the Human Rights Campaign.

On June 10, 2016, California State University, Los Angeles presented Takei with an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters for his contributions.

Raintree County Hodgepodge

Here is an interesting variation of the classic Beef Stroganoff. Slow roasted beef with onions, mushrooms, and a bit of green beans will provide some much needed comfort food. We honor a LGBT hero Actor Montgomery Clift tonight, read a quick story about him and have some interesting dinner conversation!

Slow roasting the beef insures a soft juicy texture. The use of the taste of brandy added to bacon soup makes for a long remembered dish.

Ingredients:

2 ½ lbs beef chuck roast

1 cup brandy

2 onions chopped

2 cups mushrooms

1 can cream of bacon soup

1 cup sour cream

1 cup french style green beans

Package wide noodles.

Directions:

Place the roast in a large enough baking dish. Pour 1 cup brandy over and cover dish with plastic wrap. Let sit on counter for ½ hour. Then turn the meat over to soak the other side for another ½ hour.

Preheat oven to 215 degrees and spray a dutch oven. Chop the onions into large chunks.

When marinating is done. Place the onions in the pot. Take the meat out of the marinade and cut into bite sized chunks. Place on the bed of onions.

Cover and let slow roast for 3 hours.

Go ahead and cook up the noodles according to package.

You will have more than enough meat, so portion out about half into freezer bags for use at a latter time.

Drain all but about 1 cup of liquid from the pot and add the mushrooms.

Let cook for about 7 minutes to reduce moisture. Add the cup of green beans, then return the meat and onions. 

Stir in the can of bacon soup and the cup of sour cream.

Stir occasionally until well blended and heated through.

Serve this over the noodles.

If you wish, for an interesting twist, serve this over a bed of plain puffed rice!

For our music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLTJ95kj9ng

socialslave

To satisfy and restore.

To nourish, support and maintain.

To gratify, spoil, comfort and please,

to nurture, assist, and sustain

…..I cook!

Please buy slave's cookbook:

The Little Black Book of Indiscreet Recipes by Dan White http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F315Y4I/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_vAT4sb0934RTM via @amazon

===================================================

Montgomery Clift

(1920 – 1966) An American actor. A four-time Academy Award nominee, He was known for his portrayal of "moody, sensitive young men".

While we know he was gay, the details of his private life remain speculation. That has not stopped the LGBT community from embracing him as an important part of our culture.

Edward Montgomery Clift was born in Omaha, Nebraska. All her life Clift's mother was bound and determined that her children should be brought up in the style of true aristocrats.

He and his siblings were privately tutored, traveled extensively in America and Europe, became fluent in German and French, and led a protected life, sheltered from the destitution that followed the First World War.

He took to stage acting, beginning in a summer production, which led to his debut on Broadway by 1935. In the next 10 years, Clift built a successful stage career working with some of the top names of the theater, like, Fredric March, Tallulah Bankhead, Alfred Lunt, and Lynn Fontanne. He appeared in plays written by Moss Hart, Robert Sherwood, Lillian Hellman, Tennessee Williams, and Thornton Wilder.

In 1939, as a member of the cast of the Broadway production of Noël Coward's Hay Fever, Clift participated in one of the very first television broadcasts in the United States. A performance of Hay Fever was broadcast by NBC's New York television station W2XBS (the forerunner of WNBC) and was aired during the World's Fair as part of the introduction of television.

Clift did not serve during World War II, having been given 4-F status after suffering dysentery in 1942.

From the start, Clift was framed as a rebel and an individual. When he first arrived in Hollywood, he didn’t sign a contract, waiting until after the success of his first two films to negotiate a three-picture deal with Paramount that allowed him total discretion over projects. It was unheard of, especially for a young star

His first movie role was opposite John Wayne in Red River, which was shot in 1946 and released in 1948. His second movie was The Search, which premiered in the same year. Clift was unhappy with the quality of the script, and reworked it himself. The movie was awarded a screenwriting Academy Award for the credited writers.

He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. 

Clift's performance in A Place in the Sun (1951) is regarded as one of his signature method acting performances. He worked extensively on his character, and was again nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. For his character's scenes in jail, Clift spent a night in a real state prison.

Sensitive, mysterious, brooding, and suspiciously single. These are just among the many words used to describe the enigmatic heartthrob of the 1950s.

Clift was incredibly private about his love life. He had close female friendships, including stage actress Libby Holman, who was 16 years older. Tabloids would whisper about them, but he would insist to the platonic nature of their friendship, and state “those romantic rumors are embarrassing to both of us.”

He insisted on maintaining his residence in New York, spending as little time in Hollywood as possible. His apartment, which he rented for 10 dollars a month, was described by friends as “beat up”.

He survived on two meals a day, mostly combinations of steak, eggs, and orange juice, and he rejected going to nightclubs, instead spending his spare time reading Chekov, classic works of history and economics, and Aristotle, whom he praised for his belief in happiness. When he wasn’t reading or exhausting himself in preparation for a part, he liked to go to the local night court and attend high-profile court cases just to watch the humanity on display.

The Los Angeles Times called him the “Rumpled Movie Idol”; he infamously owned only one suit.

Whatever relationships Clift may have had, he was circumspect. Unlike Rock Hudson, whose affairs were very nearly exposed to the entire nation by Confidential, Clift never made the pages of the scandal rags. He was “lonely,” yet with the help of his refusal to live in Los Angeles or participate in café society, he was able to keep his private life private.

In 1966, returning from a party at Liz Taylor’s house, while filming Raintree County, he smashed his car into a telephone pole.

Moments after the accident, actor Kevin McCarthy, driving in front of Clift, ran back to check on him, seeing that “his face was torn away—a bloody pulp. I thought he was dead.” McCarthy ran to fetch Taylor, Wilding, and Rock Hudson and Hudson’s wife, Phyllis Gates, who all raced to the site of the accident.

One version of the story has Hudson pulling Clift from the car and Taylor cradling him in her arms, at which point Clift started choking and motioning to his throat, where, it soon became clear, two of his teeth had lodged themselves after coming loose during the accident. Taylor opened his mouth, put her hand down his throat, and pulled out the teeth.

When photographers arrived, Taylor announced that she knew each and every one of them personally-- and if they took pictures of Clift, who was still very much alive, she’d make sure they never worked in Hollywood again.

Regardless of the veracity of this story, one thing remains true: there’s not a single picture of Clift’s broken face.

But after an initial flurry of coverage, he retreated from public view entirely. Months of surgeries, rebuilding, and physical therapy followed. Production resumed on Raintree County, which the studio feared would fail following Clift’s accident. But Clift knew the film would be a smash, if only because audiences would want to compare his long unseen face from before and after the accident. In truth, his face wasn’t truly disfigured but one side was left immobile.

In October 1956, Louella Parsons reported on Clift’s “very bad health” and various attempts to clean him up. His decline was never explicitly evoked, but with his visage in Raintree County, it was there for all to see.

By 1958, Clift lashed out, proclaiming, “I am not—repeat not—a member of the Beat Generation. I am not one of America’s Angry Young Men. I do not count myself as a member of the ripped-sweatshirt fraternity.” He wasn’t a “young rebel, an old rebel, a tired rebel, or a rebellious rebel”—all he cared about was re-creating a “slice of life” on the screen. He was sick of being a symbol, a symptom, a testament to something.

Liz Taylor insisted that Clift be cast in her new project, Suddenly, Last Summer (1959). It was a huge gambol: since everyone knew how much booze and pills Clift was on, he was virtually un-insurable on set.

The results were not pretty. Clift couldn’t get through longer scenes, having to split them up into two or three chunks. The subject matter, which involved him assisting in the cover-up of a dead man’s apparent homosexuality, must have sparked mixed emotions. Director Joseph Mankiewicz tried to replace Clift, but Taylor and co-star Katharine Hepburn defended and supported him. Hepburn was reportedly so incensed by Mankiewicz’s treatment of Clift that when the film officially wrapped, she found the director and spat in his face.

Next came the film The Misfits, best known as the final film of Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable. The director, John Huston, supposedly brought in Clift because he thought he’d have a “soothing effect” on Monroe. But Monroe reported that Clift was “the only person I know who is in even worse shape than I am.” The pictures from the set are poignant and heartbreaking.

The Misfits bombed, only to be recuperated, years later, as a masterpiece of the revisionist genre. Looking back, the film had a legacy of darkness: Gable died of a heart attack less than a month after filming; Monroe was only able to attend the film’s premiere with a pass from her stay at a psychiatric ward. She wouldn’t die for another year and a half, but Misfits would be her last completed film. As for Clift, the shoot was incredibly taxing, both mentally and physically: in addition to acquiring a scar across his nose from a stray bull’s horn, severe rope burns, and various other rough-and-tumble injuries, he also performed what has widely come to be regarded as one of his best scenes, a stilted, heartbreaking conversation with his mother from a phone booth. Even if Clift himself was already spiraling out of control, playing a character that did the same only amplified the psychological toll.

While filming a 15-minute supporting role as a mentally handicapped victim of the Holocaust in Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), he had to ad-lib all of his lines. But something of the old talent remained— to earn Clift a nomination for best-supporting actor, playing, “a victim irretrievably damaged by suffering.”

He was such a mess on the set of Freud (1962) that Universal sued him.

Actor Montgomery Clift died of a heart attack in 1966.

In 2000, at the GLAAD Media Awards, where Elizabeth Taylor was honored for her work for the LGBT community, she made the first public declaration by anyone of the fact that Clift was gay and called him her closest friend and confidant.

Clift once said, “The closer we come to the negative, to death, the more we blossom.” He took himself to that precipice, but he fell straight in. And so he remains frozen in the popular imagination, circa From Here to Eternity—those high cheekbones, that set jaw, the firm stare: a magnificent, proud, tragically broken thing to behold.