bonglonglong

The net is an incredible place, because 10 years ago, if I wanted to make "calaveras," which are those sugar skulls that kids and lovers give each other for the Mexican holiday El Dia de los Muertos (the Day of the Dead), how on earth would I have figured out how to do that without going to Mexico and hanging out in some grandma's kitchen?

So I was all excited a couple of weeks back when I ordered my sugar skull mold (just a cheap piece of polystyrene that looks like the containers that things like Ipods and flash drives come in...that stuff thats practically impossible to cut open without slicing your hands) and got ready to make 40 calaveras for my fall dinner party.



The website that sold me the skull mold (for an astonishing $15 considering the cheap production cost...this stuff is just basically packaging) has a recipe for sugar skulls that I found repeated virtually EVERYWHERE on the internet. If a site had a recipe for sugar skulls, this was the recipe. And there simply were no other recipes.

The problem was that their recipe called for an ingredient called "meringue powder" which is an obscure ingredient typically only found in commercial kitchens, and it's offensively expensive. Sure, their website will be happy to sell you a small quantity, enough to make about 4 big skulls, for around $10. Maybe that's a bargain if you only want to make 4 skulls (which, with your $15 mold and $10 meringue powder, plus shipping, is going to make your skulls cost around $9-$10 per skull once you buy the rest of the ingredients). I can't afford that for 40 skulls.

But their recipe specifically states, "This recipe will not work if you leave out the meringue powder, the skulls will fall apart." And it was the ONLY recipe I could find on the net that looked legitimate.

"Surely," I thought, "those little grandmas in Oaxaca aren't pulling out their tin of ultra-expensive imported meringue powder when it's time to make calaveras."

Knowing that meringue powder is basically powdered eggs whites, I figured...why not just try using egg whites to help cement the sugar together, and maybe bake the skulls at a low temperature to speed the setting and drying process?"

An experiment proceeded to unfold. And I got it right with the first try! So if you can find yourself a sugar skull mold, here's how to make perfect calaveras without meringue powder:

6 cups sugar

2 egg whites

That's it folks. Put the egg whites in the bottom of a big bowl, dump in the granulated sugar, and get your hands all messy squeezing and churning it together until the sugar feels like wet sand at the beach. You want the sugar to be as dry as possible but still stick together in the mold, but it's better for it to be too damp than too dry.



Take a handful, dump it into your skull mold and press it down, and continue until the mold is full. Make certain that you press VERY firmly so the sugar is packed hard into the skull.




Then rake a knife or straight edge across the back of the mold to give yourself a flat edge for the bottom of the skull.


Then take a spoon and scoop out a little sugar from the center of the back of the skull so that you don't waste sugar and so the skull doesn't weigh too much.


Make sure the walls of the skull will be at least 1" thick when you dump it out of the mold, or it may collapse on itself.



Then take a square of cardboard just a little larger than your skull, place it against the back of the mold, and flip the mold over.



Gently pull the mold up off the sugar and you'll have a perfect replica of a skull staring back at you.



The mold should come off easily. If it is hard to pull off, your sugar is too wet and you need to add an extra handful to the bowl and work it in well with your hands. The mold should pull off easily leaving a smooth, perfect replica, and the drier the sugar is, the better this will happen.



Rinse the mold between each skull and dry with a paper towel. Continue making skulls with more sugar and more cardboard squares until you have all your skulls formed.

Then, very carefully, place your skulls inside a preheated 200F oven for 30 minutes. When you remove them, the surface will be very hard to the touch. But don't put too much stress on them yet...they need a week of drying before they'll be hard enough all the way through to handle vigorously.

Google "sugar skulls" or "calaveras" to see pictures of how the skulls are decorated. Traditionally, the name of the person receiving the skull is written on a piece of colored foil which is placed across the skull's forehead, and then the rest of the skull is decorated with brightly colored icing. You can get tubes of premixed icing at the grocery store which work just fine, or make your own by using lots of powdered sugar, an egg white, a few tablespoons of corn starch, food coloring, and a few drops of water. Stir it until it's thick, then stuff it into a decorating bag. If you don't have a decorating bag, make a cone of wax paper, parchment paper, or just plain paper, fill the cone with icing, and cut a tiny bit off the tip of the cone. Fold the top paper down until you can squeeze the icing out of the tip you just cut.

Use the icing to decorate the skulls, which can be done as soon as they come out of the oven and cool. Then let the skulls, icing and all, dry for a week and you'll have a perfect Mexican sugar skull.



The recipe above will make about 2 complete large skulls. (Molds come with a front and a back. You make them separately and then glue them together with icing. I found it was just as cool to just make the front of the skull, the face, and decorate it so it lies flat on the table and stares up at you.) So the recipe above will make 3-4 large skull faces, but this will vary depending on the size of your mold.

If you make lots of skulls, buy a huge bag of sugar and lots of eggs. I went through 25 pounds of sugar and 18 eggs to make 40 skulls, and only made the front half of the skull.

Some of you might have heard the recent story of the UCLA student who was tasered 5 times after refusing to show his student ID in the UCLA library.  If not, here's a brief rehashing:

Early this week, a senior UCLA student of middle-eastern background was studying late for midterms in the library at UCLA along with many other students.  The library has a policy that after 11pm, only students with proper ID are allowed in the library.  The student was approached and asked for ID, and apparently the way in which he was approached led him to believe he was being singled out because of his middle-eastern appearance, so he refused to show his ID.  He was repeatedly asked to show his ID or leave, and as he was finally leaving the library, the campus police arrived and wouldn't allow him to leave without showing his ID.

He wouldn't show his ID and shouted, "Am I the only martyr?" to other students in the library, trying to encite an uprising against the police.  In response, the police used a taser gun on the student to subdue him.  Understandably, he ended up on the ground after the 20,000 volt shock.  The police handcuffed him and demanded that he stand up, but he either wouldn't or couldn't.  The police were shouting, "Stop fighting us!"  And the student responded, "I'm NOT fighting you.  I'm just laying here."  Soon he began to shout, "Here's your patriot act!  Here's your fucking abuse of power.  I was leaving the library and you came in here and tazed me.  I said I would leave.  I said I would leave."

After repeated demands to stand up, the officers tazed the student again.  The students in the library began to shout at the officers that they were being unreasonable and to ask for their badge numbers.  The officers ignored these demands and proceded to taze the student again, up to a total of 5 times.  They even threatened to taze the watching students if they didn't stand back!
Eventually the student was carried out of the library by the police and taken to the station, where he was released after being charged with confronting an officer.

It's obvious to anyone that the police didn't approach this situation in the right way.  The kid was basically peacefully protesting the library ID policy and complaining that he was being singled out because of his appearance, and the officers got aroused on the fact that the kid was resisting their demands and decided to get tough on him with their stun guns.  The better solution would have been a quiet, rational conversation about why the student felt the need to violate library policy, and then if he didn't agree to leave or comply, to put handcuffs on him and escort him out of the library.  If he refused to move (as officers state he did) he should have been carried out of the library, not tazed five times and then expected to leave on his own two feet.

Perhaps even more disturbingly, UCLA apparently has a policy that PERMITS campus police to use taser guns against passive protesters who refuse to move.  So the officers, at least with the first taze, were acting IN ACCORDANCE WITH UNIVERSITY POLICY.

What happened to the right to peacefully protest?  Sure, the kid was breaking library policy by refusing to show his ID after hours.  But wasn't Rosa Parks also breaking local law when she refused to move from the white section of the public bus to the black section?  Should police have tazed her, as well?

I wonder how the civil rights movement might have progressed had Rosa Parks been brutally attacked for not complying with the law.

The cops involved should all be tazed 5 times each and suspended from their positions without pay for a time to reconsider their actions.  The policymakers at the university who approved the taser rule should also be tazed 5 times each to realize exactly how painful it is, and for acting in a fascist way to prevent students' rights to peacefully protest.

This incident isn't being given enough exposure.  This is a blatant violation of civil rights, not just by a group of power-drunk cops, but by the board of one of the nation's largest universities, which feels it's alright to fly in the face of the freedoms our country was based on, to adopt totalitarian principles.

What the hell is going on in this country?

As an alternative to the traditional apple-brined turkey recipe I just posted, I get as many requests for my Life Altering Cajun Turkey.  It is also brined, but it's brined from the inside-out with an injected brine.  If your taste buds prefer the tickle of cayenne, try this turkey for Thanksgiving...

Ben's Life-Altering Cajun Turkey

Spice base:

1 cup kosher salt
1/4 cup cayenne pepper
1/4 cup finely ground black pepper
1/2 cup garlic powder

Injectable brine:

Take 1/2 cup of the spice base and put into a sauce pan with:

4 T butter or oil
1/2 c apple cider vinegar (or vinegary white wine)
juice of 2 lemons
2 cups water

Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer 15 minutes.  Remove from heat and cool to room temperature.  Strain through a fine strainer to remove big particles which might clog the injector.

Fill meat injector and inject turkey all over.  Continue pressing down on the syringe even as you begin to pull the needle back out so that brine is injected at all levels of the meat.  Continue injecting all over the turkey until most or all of the brine is gone or until the turkey is swollen with brine.  This is a VERY messy affair, as brine will squirt out the puncture wound in the turkey each time you remove the needle, so be prepared with a towel.

Put turkey in fridge and chill overnight, or 8 hours before turkey will be put into the oven.

Preheat oven to 500 degrees.

Remove turkey from fridge and press foil around legs to create little heat shields.  Fold a square of foil into a triangle and push over the breast to form a heat shield.  Then remove the shields and keep in a safe place near the oven.

Rub the turkey all over, including the inside of the cavity, with canola oil.  Take the remaining spice base and rub it into the oiled skin on the outside of the turkey.  Put the turkey into the 500 degree oven for 30 minutes.  Remove the turkey from the oven and turn the temperature down to 350.

Cover the legs and breast with the foil heat shields (carefully! the turkey is hot) and push a meat thermometer through the foil and into the center of the thickest part of the breast.  Make sure the thermometer isn't contacting the breast bone.

Return the turkey to the 350 degree oven and roast until the thermometer reads 161 degrees.  Total cooking time for a 14 pound bird will be 2-3 hours, generally.

Remove turkey from oven and cover with foil and let it rest at least 15 minutes before carving.

The juices in the pan can be made into a fantastic Cajun gravy, but use them sparingly as they are very salty.

Gobble, gobble.  Since I received two phone calls within two hours asking how to brine a turkey, I guess it's about time to post a recipe.

HOW TO BRINE A TURKEY

Ingredients:

1 gallon apple cider vinegar

1 gallon apple cider

1 box Morton's Kosher salt

water

1-2 bags of ice

ice chest large enough to hold the turkey

Begin by determining how much liquid will be needed to cover the turkey.  Put the turkey (still in its package) into the ice chest.  Fill the ice chest with water until the bird is covered by an inch of water.  Remove the bird.  Measure the amount of water remaining in the ice chest.  (If there's a spout in the bottom, just drain the water off into an empty milk carton to determine the number of gallons.)

The ratio of salt to liquid for the brine is 1 cup to 1 gallon.  The day before brining, bring 2 quarts of apple cider to a boil and add the amount of salt needed to achieve a 1 cup-to-1 gallon ratio for the total gallons of liquid needed to cover the bird in the ice chest.  Stir to dissolve and remove from heat.  Add the remaining apple cider to the mix to cool it.  Pour the salted cider back into its gallon container and place it and the gallon of apple cider vinegar in the fridge to chill overnight.

6-8 hours before baking, place the thawed bird into the ice chest.  Add the salted cider, the vinegar, and enough water to the chest to raise the liquid an inch above the bird.  Lay a sack of ice on top of the bird to keep it submerged and to keep the brine cold.  Close the ice chest and let the bird sit for 6-8 hours.  (6 hours is best for your first brining, you can increase to 8 hours or more based on your taste preference.)  Rattle the chest vigorously at least once during the brining process to ensure the free movement of brine into the bird cavity.

After brining has completed, remove the bird and pat it dry with paper towels.  Take aluminum foil and press it firmly around each leg to form a heat shield.  Cut a square of foil and fold it in half to make a triangle and press the triangle over the turkey breast to form a shield.  Remove the foil shields and lay them in a safe place beside the oven to use later.

Rub canola oil all over the bird, inside and out.  Stuff the cavity with sliced apples and fresh rosemary and thyme.  Bake in a 500 degree oven for 30 minutes.  Remove from oven and reduce heat to 350.  Place shields onto legs and breast and push a meat thermometer through the foil into the thickest part of the turkey breast, careful to avoid it contacting the bone.  Return the turkey to the 350 degree oven and roast until the internal temperature reaches 161 degrees.

Total cooking time will be around 2 hours for a 14 pound bird but could take longer or shorter depending on the amount of moisture in the bird.

After removing from the oven, cover loosely with foil and let the bird sit for at least 15 minutes before carving.

It has been way too long since I sent this, the second installment of our recent trip to Sicily, but the Fall dinner party and a potential business venture sucked away all my time and brainpower. So apologies all around for the delay. And away we go...

As promised, this installment won't be entirely about food, like the last one was. We started doing "Sicily" things on Sunday, two days after I arrived. Our goal for Sunday was The Valley of Temples, which is located on the southern coast of Sicily near the large city of Agrigento.

On the way down to Agrigento, we discovered that there really IS a castle on virtually every hilltop in Sicily. You can't drive 5 minutes without seeing a new one pop up. Most of them aren't even marked on maps and they're falling into ruin.




After a couple of hours we go to the Valle de Templi. This ancient Greek city, constructed in the 5th century BC, was lauded by many ancient historians as "the most beautiful city of mortals." Today, the remains consist of a string of temples on a ridge overlooking the Mediterranean.



We didn't realize it at the time, but on the last Sunday of the month, all archaeological sites in Sicily are free to the public. This was nice for us because we avoided the $8 per person entry fee at this and other sites we visited that day. But the downside was that the site was swarming with Sicilians!

The site was impressive, with the temples made of red sandstone instead of the white marble from which most ancient Greek temples are constructed. There were olive trees all around, including some very ancient ones, and I discovered that olives are inedible when they're picked straight from the trees. Yuk. There were also almond trees everywhere, and I managed to crack open a few.



Despite the crowds, I still managed to snap a butt and scarf photo, but it wasn't very good. Ma and Angela wanted nothing to do with my nudity, fearful of being arrested or worse, so they took shelter under a giant olive tree.



Under the tree they found some lovely miniature temples which were probably constructed by Greek ants around 500 BC.



We moved on westward along the coast in search of lunch. We stopped in the town of Siculiana, which is a beautiful medieval city perched around a castle atop a hill. It was a Sunday afternoon, and everyone in the city seemed to be asleep. We didn't pass a soul in the abandoned streets. As we drove in front of a centuries-old church, a flock of white doves took wing through the deserted courtyard in front.

Eventually we drove down to the beach below Siculiana and found a fantastic restaurant for lunch, outdoors right on the beach. I had fresh steamed mussles! There was a large Sicilian family having dinner at the table next to us, and the server was bringing out course after course of pasta and fresh fish. I can't imagine what the bill was at the end!



It was hot and stuffy, and the Mediterranean was beckoning me, so I stripped down to my underwear and jumped into the sea. It was cold! But clear. And so refreshing. The beach here was lovely.



Our final stop for the evening was Seliunte, which was the most remote of the Greek colonies. It's near the far southwestern corner of Sicily. It was built in the 5th century BC and was attacked by the Carthaginians and then destroyed by earthquakes in the 4th century. It wasn't rediscovered until the 1500s and has been restored into one of the most magnificent Greek temples on Earth.





We watched an incredible sunset from here, and I also got to snap some spectacular butt and scarf pics.





The next day Angela had to work, and Christian and I had planned to rent a car to drive to Mt. Etna, one of the most active volcanoes on earth. But we woke up to rainy, cold skies, so we went into Palermo instead and explored the city.

Palermo is a fantastic city, with all the charming cobblestone alleys, crumbling churches, massive cathedrals, street vendors, and small cafes that you imagine when you think of Europe.





We strolled the length of several major streets and ended up at the Cattedrale, one of the largest and most bizarre cathedrals in Europe. The original structure was an Islamic church, built during the Norman era, and was expanded on by each conquering civilization and during each architectural era. So in one glimpse you can see Islamic domes, Gothic spires, Baroque arches...it's very bizarre.



More mixed architecture can be found in churches across Palermo, but our favorite were the adjoining churches of San Cataldo, a 12th century church converted from a mosque, and La Martorana, a Baroque chapel full of spectacular mosaics.



You can see the Arabic-looking architecture on the church on the right, and the traditional Gothic architecture on the church on the left. Martorana is a popular place for weddings, and both days we visited there were people getting married there. It was amazing to watch these traditional wedding ceremonies in the mosaic-filled church.



We stopped in at an internet cafe before heading home to check the status of our flights. Everything looked okay, and as I was assembling my things to leave, I forgot to pick up my camera. I didn't realize until we were back at Angela's, a good half-hour train ride and walk from the city. By that time the trains had stopped running, it was pouring again, and I resigned myself to the fact that I had lost all my Sicily photos and would have to get another camera when I got back.

Our final two days in Sicily were even more exciting (we explored secret castles!), but you'll have to wait another few days to hear about them!