Category: Food & Drink

In this case, I’m not talking about government bloat, but my own.  This fucking pointless lockdown caused by the Chinkvirus has quite enfattened me, not so much because of what I’ve been eating — okay, not that much — but because our gym has been closed for the past three months by our timorous apartment management.

I hate strolling, unless to a pub — but as the pubs have been closed as well, even that has been denied me.  AND we’re starting to approach the annual Texas Broil a.k.a. summer, so the desire to walk outside is lessened yet more.  Which means that New Wife has put her foot down and decreed that we will now be entering a period of No Sugar And Only Healthy Foods.  Fuck.

My coffee tastes like hot, rancid bilgewater and I can only imagine what weeks of salads and such are going to do to my already-tenuous control of my temper.  And I know, I know:

Me too.

I think I’ll just have to spend a lot more time at the range.  Which reminds me, I need to lay in a little more ammo, because reasons.

I understand why people use drive-through lanes to get their morning coffee en route to the office, even though I think it’s a mark of either stupidity or pure laziness when the “convenience” is nullified by long waits in the queue, e.g. in Britishland:

Motorists queued for hours to get a drink at Costa drive-throughs this morning, sparking fears people are ignoring lockdown measures as more high street chains reopen.
Tailbacks stretched around the block at takeaway chains in Edinburgh, Wakefield and Glasgow today as drivers waited to get their coffee fix.
At the weekend, eager customers queued for more than a mile to get a coffee at a branch in Snowhill Retail Park in Yorkshire as it reopened after more than a month on Saturday.

Costa makes decent coffee, but it’s not that  great.  (And don’t get me started on Starfucks’s burnt water concoctions.)

For those people who are not completely up to date on recent modern inventions, there are now things called “travel mugs” which allow one to make one’s coffee at home and take it to the office, where it can still be enjoyed hot.  Here’s an example:

… or, if one prefers to support one’s favorite coffee brand: 

Pro tip:   Plastic travel mugs are useless.  Nothing beats a decently-insulated metal one — unless you’re rich and can afford the Thermos (glass-interior) type.

Even better, brewing one’s own coffee at home allows one to use a decent brand of coffee — whether it’s the humble Dunkin’ Donuts Regular (still my favorite coffee, after thirty years):

  … or one of the “gourmet” (over-priced) offerings: 

In the old days, the only way to brew coffee was in a giant thing which made a large pot of the stuff — which, of course, is not the optimal choice when one needs only a single cup.  However, since the mid-1990s there has been another option, the single-cup home brewer:

…or, if one wants to feel all Italian: 

…which were once tied to the awful pods, but now allow one to use ground coffee in a small filtered device which — and I cannot express this strongly enough — enables one to brew coffee to the desired strength, and not as decided by some bored coffee-jockey.

I know that all this sounds terribly complicated, and really can’t compare with the joy of waiting for hours in one’s car, eventually to get a cardboard cup filled with overpriced coffee, but I would be remiss if I didn’t point out at least a modest option thereto.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to the Keurig.

More than a few of you have asked me to put my Biltong Prep post onto the permanent sidebar, so I have.

Just FYI:  I changed the spice measures ever so slightly, and also (based on the last batch I made) substituted red wine vinegar for malt.  Yum.  New Wife and I have actually had to measure out the sliced biltong into daily-ration portions, because we have absolutely no brake pedal on this addiction.

It should be called beefcrack and not biltong, except that sounds vaguely suggestive.