Why not, ren?
As for me, I had a really great day yesterday, absolutely fanfuckingtastic in fact.
My next door neighbors, one of their pairs of folks, not the girl, but her b/f's parents came over from denmark to see them, and they'd got a BBQ going, so I offered to share some steaks, if they'd find space after cooking their own food over the coals for me to toss a couple on for myself, I'd share some more of them with them. They said sure I could, but were quite happy with their own food, so didn't take the steak offer. Still, were fine with me cooking my own. Hadn't had BBQ for like 15 years or more at least.
So I did buy them some ice-pops, though by way of a small gift. Just a token of my appreciation, and they are nice people anyhow. Came over to join them, and we had a good time. One of the two neighbors themselves, the guy, offered to pull a cold beer out of the fridge for me. I already had beer, but I accepted that, and gave him one of my pint cans so he wasn't out of pocket. His weren't that big,but he didn't realize that or ask for one of mine in return, I just was happy to give him one anyhow, and they shared some of their BBQed bangers with me too, we all had a good time sat round the picnic table, outside in their garden, had a good time chatting and chomping, slapped 6 big juicy prime cuts of beef down on the grill, over the coals and got them sizzling and juicy in no time, compared to frying them as I usually do. Really tasty, did them with a bit of worcestershire sauce and my special spice mix.
I make my own spice blend, to a personally invented recipe especially for doing steak, and use it sometimes in chili con carne too. (if anyone wants the recipe, its pink peppercorns [Schinus berries, a species of sumac, not a true member of the pepper family nor of the chili tribe, they aren't hot at all, but rather have an aromatic, resinous kind of flavor, a slight bite upon the tongue when one is chewed but its far more oene of flavor than anything having the slightest thing in common with heat or any kind of peppers], black pepper, a modest pinch of sea salt, chili peppers, red, dried, deprived of their internal ribs and seeds if using really fiery ones, the batch I made last just used moderately spicy ones, then there is sczechuan pepper,a chinese spice that comes from the seed-cases of some oriental plant, I don't know what, having no heat, rather, cooling, icy, slightly menthol like but overall WEIRD effects upon the mouth when chewed whole, a numbing, local anaesthetic-like effect; whilst they really are not very similar at all the closest analogy I could come up with is cardamom, with a more mentholly but not minty effect on the mouth and tongue, mixed with a bit of lidocaine or cocaine, or benzocaine or the like, whilst having no stimulant cocaine like effect if thats the analogy used, merely the local anaesthetic effects...strange weird fuckers, oddest spice I've ever had dealings with. Then there are a few cubebs, Piper cubeba, deprived of their stalks, these are a true member of the pepper family, and lastly but not at all leastly, the two most important ingredients being peppery boletus (Chalciporus piperatus) and the fly agaric mushroom, this one is poisonous unless prepared correctly, by curing it in the oven over the lowest flame possible overnight, propping the door open to permit the evaporation and escape of moisture, the mushrooms are best stripped of stalk and gills as the former is tough and not so tasty at all as the caps, the valued part, and the gills contain a lot of moisture so it helps avoid them getting sloppy etc. Dry on baking foil sheets on trays turning every so often to make sure escaping juices get recirculated upon to the mushroom caps again. the gills can be removed best by slicing lengthways along the axis from cap edge to stalk with a sharp blade, removing the bulk of them, I then even them up by scraping sidewaysuntl the result is the cap tissue, after first scraping off the warts from the veil. The peppery boletes are not toxic, and grow as parasites upon the subterranean mycelium of the fly agaric, and so can be found often when one finds fly agaric:)
