OK Class. I'd like everyone to say their name and something interesting about themselves.

When I was in college, I was shy and nervous to an absurd level (at just the perfect age to feel that way. Thank you, Universe!), uncomfortable in my own skin and with a tendency to completely freeze up in crowds.  So despite having lots of opinions and generally knowing the material, I wasn't a very participatory student.  The idea of presenting my artwork in class would cause a mini-panic attacks, which is likely the reason that I get to hear "You should have been an artist" instead of, you know, actually being one.  Ditto for being called on in class, and doubly so for presenting a research project.    Still, I had a good avoidance strategy in place to cope with those situations, generally hiding and grunting out answers only when the words "Mr. Macharelli, do you know X?" spoiled my day .  There was, however, one scenario that used to wreak havoc with my technique.

As fate would have it (fucking fate, always sticking to me whenever possible), I seemed to regularly enroll in classes with professors who would kick off the new semester by having the students introduce themselves to the class.  At that point my life, it was pure torture.   The "something about yourself" part was terrifying.  Who the hell was I?  At 36, a wiser and and more confident me struggles with that question. The 19 year-old me had no chance.  You could have gotten me to say almost anything to avoid it.   I'd turn over my lunch money. I'd write an overlong, navel-gazing, extra-credit essay.   I'd have confessed to being on the Grassy Knoll in 1963.

Now that I think of it, it would have been awesome to have said "Hi, my name is David, and you may have seen some of my work in your 20th Cent. American Civ. class. It may seem impossible due my birth date, but I was the "Grassy Knoll" shooter.  I was trying a variation on Christopher Reeve's self-hypnosis time travel bit from Somewhere in Time for an extra credit history project in that same class, only to awaken in a room surrounded by Charlie Luciano, Fidel Castro and J. Edgar Hoover.  Somehow, they knew I was from the future and threatened to have my then-teenage parents eliminated unless I complied with their demands.  The instant that the trigger was pulled and the deed done, I reached into my pocket as Hoover had instructed to find a 1974 Kennedy half-dollar, the sight of which jarred me back to the present along with all evidence that I was there. Remarkable plan by those guys. It's nice to meet all of you. (little wave and grin)".  Alas, even adult-me could never pull that off,  so what normally happened was this...

I'd glance at the clock, dividing the number of minutes left in class by the number of people ahead of me and the average time they blathered on for in the hopes that time would expire before I had to take my turn.  At some point, it would become apparent that ten people weren't going to consume 35 minutes saying hello, not even if two or three of them were engagers like my father, and I'd curse the rotten luck of having a middle of the alphabet last name instead of something like Zimmerman. Once this realization set in, my throat and mouth  would start to dry out. Then adrenaline would course through my system, causing my hands to shake and sweat, my face to flush, and the always popular, "butterflies in the stomach".  Finally, the moment of truth would arrive.  It was my turn.

Heart pounding through my chest, I'd pop up and rasp out something like (at hyper-speed and without spaces, like The Flash rogue Prof. Zoom) "MYNAMEISDAVID-ANDIAMANARTMAJOR!" and immediately drop back into my chair.  The adrenaline crash would start as soon as my ass hit the seat, where I would slump, head in hand,  eyes darting around to check for people staring at and judging me.  Looking back, it's doubtful anyone was even paying attention and if they were, well, it's not like it was undeserved.

The stupidity of it is hilarious  to me now but funnier still is this.  People used to know the guy who behaved this way, and still wonder why I had trouble dating.

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Crestfallen

No, not me.  Not in this post anyway.

During my pawnbroker days,  I used to regular have to dash the hopes of people who were victims of  the   classic white van speaker scam.

First,  some background.    In the case of the white van speaker scam, a van would pull up to someone in a parking lot and spin a story about how the driver was a delivery man who had just come from (insert local club here) and had a few professional DJ speakers "left over". Since "he couldn't take them back to the warehouse", he would offer to them to sell at deep discount, as though they were unordered pizzas coming out of the delivery person's salary.  The driver would prove that the speakers had a retail value of $1500.00 with some slickly produced (or, photocopied on colored paper. People still fell for it  I guess paper = OFFICIAL!) paperwork or ads.   For some percentage of men (No sexism intended, it was seemingly always men who fell for this gimmick),  this would seal the deal and they'd leave as proud owners of some professional DJ Speakers.

Some of these guys might actually hook the speakers up, and realize that they sounded terrible. Others might have their spouse or parents tell them they had no room for big clunky speakers.  Others still would have the idea of a quick cash-in,  looking to turn their hundred dollar investment into big payday.  Regardless of their motivations, the conversation would always go the same way when the purchaser of the speakers would come into the pawn shop.

It opened with  something like...
"Hey.  How much do you give for brand new items?"
I'd reply with "About a third to half of the retail price"
 "What? Really! Do you take professional speakers?" with barely restrained jubilation as visions of $500 to $750  dancing in his head.  I should note that the words "professional speakers " are an immediate red flag that the conversation will be taking an ugly turn when said speakers actually come through the door. Still, since sometimes, the customer actually had decent speakers i was obliged to answer
"Yes."

"OK! Let me go out and get them!"  as they would practically float out to the car, imagining their new side business as a DJ Equipment middleman leading to a swim in their own version of Scrooge McDuck's treasure vault.

I would wait at the counter with the nervous  anticipation of what was to follow, and follow it did, nearly every time.  The person would lug the box of speakers up to the counter.  I'd look at them, and deadpan "We can give you $50 for those.".  If I were living a sitcom, this would part where the record needle scratch effect would screech.

"What? WHAT? You said I could get at least a third of what they cost!  They're worth almost two-thousand dollars!" would begin  their argument.

A weak shrug and  "I'm sorry, but they're not.  They go for around $100.00 to $125.00." was all I could offer in return.  Things were about to escalate quickly.

"YOU FUCKING LYING CON ARTIST PUNK! YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT! I WANT TO SEE A MANAGER! YOU'RE TRYING TO RIP ME OFF SO YOU CAN HAVE THEM FOR YOURSELF, YOU SCUMBAG!  THESE ARE PROFESSIONAL QUALITY!" was the furious response.

With that, my pity would evaporate, and I could drop the bomb guilt-free.

I'd raise an eyebrow and calmly say "You didn't buy these from a guy in a white van, did you?"  and watch the blood drain from our prospective electronic wholesaler's face, his shoulders sagging as the realization hit.  He'd been ripped off. After that,  some of them take the $50.00 and some would decide to keep the speakers.  Either way, they would sort of slink out of the store defeated and embarrassed, but maybe a  little wiser.

All of these operations work best when the person buying doesn't really think it through.  Even reasonably intelligent people have their brains shut down by the promise of a quick cash in. Lest we think that I'm just some smug prick picking on the shortcomings of others, I fully admit that I'm an idiot, too.

When I was seventeen or eighteen,  my  father, brother and I went on a bus trip to NYC for a Knicks-Bulls game.  We were walking on Canal St. when a man approached us with a Macy's bag containing what appeared to be a brand-new, in the box, still in the plastic!,  JVC compact-VHS camcorder.  He offered to sell it for $150. This being the early 90's, that sounded like a great deal to my brother and I, and I was sold almost instantly. My father, the shrewd negotiator of the trio, haggled with this street entrepreneur and settled on $100.00.   He quickly agreed, took the cash, and vanished.   As we were walking back to the bus,  the warm glow of getting something for nothing wore off of my father, who decided to open the box and see what we'd gotten.  Rather than a shiny new, likely hot, camcorder, the box was filled with shredded newspapers, a 5 lb dumbbell weight, plastic bags, and, as a final insult, a used condom.

Needless to say, it put a damper on an otherwise enjoyable  Knicks' win over the Bulls, but at least I learned that the things that seem too good to be true, usually are.  We kept the weight to serve as a reminder of that, as though I would ever forget the condom.

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Mayan Chocolate Cookies

I made these up after deciding to include a bag of cinnamon chips when taking advantage of sale on chocolate chips.  I was just going to go with the standard toll-house recipe (with cinnamon chips filling in for the chopped walnuts), but then I decided to make some changes to the dough.  I tripled the vanilla extract, added some baking powder, cinnamon and cocoa.  The end result reminded me of the flavor of  Häagen-Dazs' Mayan Chocolate ice cream, with a nice balance of chocolate and cinnamon, so that's what I decided to call them.   The proportion of cocoa is more like red velvet cake than a double-chocolate cookie. 

Mayan Chocolate Cookies

(makes roughly 24 5" cookies or 48 normal-sized cookies)

Ingredients
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
tsp salt
tsp  baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder1 
1&1/2 tbsp cocoa powder

1 tbsp cinnamon

tbsp Vanilla extract
2 sticks butter, softened
3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
3/4 cup white sugar
2 eggs
2 cups chocolate chips
1 cup cinnamon chips




Preheat  the oven to 375°.  Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper. 


Mix the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and cocoa in a bowl and set aside.  Cream the softened butter, sugar and vanilla in an stand mixer.  Add the eggs.  Slowly mix in the flour mixture until dough forms.  Stir in the chocolate and cinnamon chips. 


Bake at 375° for 12-17 minutes, depending on size of cookies. I tend to make huge cookies, using 1/4 cup, slightly flattened mounds that run toward 17 minutes. It can be difficult to tell when these are when these are done, as the dough  is already light brown when it goes into the oven and doesn't noticeably change in color.   I recommend setting the timer for 12 minutes then watching them closely.

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Apple Pie. Not "Prize-Winning" But The Best I've made.

I wish I could knew on what world this crust only rated a 6 of 10 in scoring.  I'd also like to try a slice of the winners, partly for comparison, and partly because, well, I like pies.

9" Two-Crusted Apple Pie

Crust
2½
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
½ cup shortening (frozen), cut into ½ cubes
¾ cup unsalted butter (frozen)
8 tbsp ice water

Filling
4-5 Granny Smith apples (peeled & cored, sliced ¼ inch thick)
3  MacIntosh apples  (peeled & cored, sliced ¼ inch thick)
2/3 cup sugar
tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp nutmeg
¼ tsp allspice
¼ tsp kosher salt
1 tbsp honey
1 tbsp cornstarch
rind of ½ lemon (about a tsp)
juice of ½ lemon
1 egg, beaten with a tbsp of water
½ tbsp coarse raw sugar

Pre-heat oven to 500° with an sheet pan on the bottom shelf.

Mix flour, sugar salt and shortening until combined.  Grate in butter and mix until the mixture resembles
coarse crumbs.  Add water by the tablespoon and stir until the dough comes together.  Separate dough into
2 pieces, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for an hour, or overnight.   Roll out each dough ball until it's a
few inches larger than the pie plate.  Carefully place the bottom dough in pan and press it into the corners.

Separate apples in two bowls, add ½ of lemon juice, rind, and honey to each bowl and toss until evenly
coated.  Stir sugar, salt, spices, and cornstarch together.  Add some to each bowl of apples and toss. 
Starting with Granny Smith, alternate layers of apples, mounding them in the center.   Top with second crust,
trim excess dough, roll and pinch edges closed.  Lightly brush with egg wash, dust with raw sugar, and cut
four small vent holes in the top crust. 

Put pie on the preheated sheet pan, lower the oven to 420 ° , and bake about 20 minutes until crust is
golden-brown.  Rotate the sheet pan, lower the over to 350°, and bake until filling start to bubble.  Cool pie
on wire rack to room temp before cutting.

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Beef Stroganoff

I like mushrooms, but I leave them out of this recipe because a lot of people (primarily the one I live with) don't.  If you do, simply add a cup of your favorite mushrooms to the onions when you're sauteing them.

Beef Stroganoff


Ingredients

• 1 lb beef (sirloin tips or chuck steak work best), sliced into thin ribbons
• Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tsp ground mustard
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1&1/2 cups beef stock
• 1 tbsp "old style" or coarse Dijon mustard
• Medium yellow onion halved and sliced
• 1/4 cup sour cream
• 3-4 tbsp butter
• Extra large egg noodles or home-made pappardelle if you're feeling ambitious

Prep work

Marinate beef in Worcestershire sauce and a dry red wine for about an hour. Pat it dry on a paper towel, then slice diagonally as thin as you can manage.   Season with salt and pepper.  Slice the onion in half, then into thin (3/16") slices.

Cooking

Heat a dutch oven over similarly deep pan over medium high heat, brown the beef strips until they have seared crust.  It will only take a minute or so per side, and you're not really cooking it through but going for the ever-flavorful "browned bits".  If you have a lot of beef or a small pan, do it in stages .   Once satisfactorily browned, remove the meat from pan and set aside. 

Heat a tbsp of butter in the skillet . Saute onions with in tbsp butter until translucent and slightly browned de-glazing once with brandy and once with an ounce or two of beef stock.  Remove the onions from the pan, and set aside with the beef.

Heat the remaining three tbsp of butter, add flour and ground mustard seed to make a roux ( you may need to add a little more butter or olive oil if it's too thick.  When the roux is dark golden brown, slowly  add the beef stock and few shakes of Worcestershire  sauce. Whisk smooth and simmer until thickened, add beef (with any accumulated juices) and onions, mustard, cover and simmer over low heat for about 10 minutes.  While simmering, boil the noodles as you normally would and drain. 

Serving

Remove the beef Stroganoff from heat, stir in the sour cream, let stand covered for a minute or two, then serve over the noodles.

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Pane Salsiccia e Formaggio

This is the recipe for my always popular sausage bread, endlessly tinkered with despite people telling me it was fine.  Well, it wasn't fine for me until my most recent attempt, when I finally got the crust to come out the way I like it by using a tip from America's Test Kitchen.  Instead of brushing the bread with olive oil or an eggwash, I simply sprayed it with water before putting it in the oven, then every two minutes after I put it in, 3 times total.  The end result was the dark, crunchy artisan-style crust I'd been chasing for years.

Italian Sausage and Cheese stuffed Bread

Ingredients:

• 1-1/2 lbs hot Italian sausage (La Molisana's works best)
• about 1/3 lb grated Pecorino Romano or Parmesan cheese (Use freshly grated Pecorino if you can)
• olive oil
• flour
• A spray bottle full of water for misting
• 1lb pizza dough 
• 2-1/4 King Arthur Bread Flour
• 3/4 cup of warm water (110°-105°)
• 1 TSP Hodgson Mill yeast 
• 1 TBSP of Local Honey
• 1 TBSP Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 1/2 TSP Salt
• A pinch of sugar to proof the yeast

Making the Dough:

Start by mixing the yeast & the water and add the pinch of sugar.  It'll be ready when it looks a bit foamy.  While the yeast proofs, mix the flour, oil, honey, and salt together in a large bowl. Stir in the yeast until it forms a standard pizza dough (this is mostly feel) and knead for 15 minutes either by hand, or with stand mixer equipped with a dough hook.   

Place the dough in a bowl and cover.  Let it rise for at least an hour at room temperature or in the refrigerator until it has doubled in size.

Preparing the sausage:

Remove the casing from the sausage (or sausages) and make sure it’s broken up.  Heat a TSBP of olive in a large Skillet or Frying pan.  Brown the sausage over MEDIUM heat (around 5 or 6 on the knob) until it’s golden brown and but not burned giving the pan a quick deglaze with an ounce or two of water.   It can splatter, so be careful.   Remove the sausage from the heat, and after it cools a bit, scoop it from the pan with a slotted spoon.  If you don't, the finished bread will be a soggy mess.

Preparing the dough:

Flour your hands and a cutting boards so that the dough doesn’t stick.  Stretch the dough with your hands (don’t use a rolling pin or you’ll flatten out all the bubbles) into a rectangular shape about ¼” thick. Be careful not to go too thin, or the sausage will tear the dough in the next step

Putting it all together:

Once you have the dough stretched out, sprinkle the crumbled sausage onto it, as evenly as you can and right to the edges.  Then do the same with grated cheese so that you can barely see the sausage (think of the yard after a light snowfall, with little bits of grass still poking through and you'll be in the right ballpark).   Now carefully roll the whole thing up and press/pinch the edge of the dough closed. I tend to shape the dough into a ring(which I originally did it so a cup of tomato sauce would fit in the middle for dipping, which I did exactly one time), or just pinch the ends closed to make a standard loaf shape.

Getting it in the oven:

Preheat the oven to 500° (q. George Carlin "There are only two states an oven can possibly exist in: Heated or unheated! "Preheated" is a meaningless term!") .  If you have a pizza stone, start preheating the oven about an hour before you intend to put the bread in, and you can bake it directly on the

Wipe the pizza pan or a baking sheet with olive oil, and then dust it with flour (If you have semolina, or corn meal, you can use it here). Transfer the bread to the pan.  Spray the loaf with enough water to lightly wet the outside before you put it in the over and repeat few times during the first 6 minutes (every 2 minutes or so).

After the final spray, lower the temperature  and bake at 425° for 25- 30 minutes or until the crust is the orange-brown of dark toast, but not burned.  Give the bread at 20-40 minutes (up to a few hours) to settle before cutting it.

You can use this same basic recipe with pepperoni and smoked scamorza,  broccoli and cheddar, cubed Black Forest ham with sun-dried tomatoes and smoked Gouda, etc.

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My life as cautionary tale: In which I scowl at my CV and curse my own stupidity

Like most fools with a baccalaureate degree  in the  liberal arts, I struggled to find a suitable career out of college.   Once I realized that teaching was not going to be an option, I had no back up plan and so simply jumped on the first thing to come along.  In my case, this meant starting with a temp job at a pharmaceutical company.  That's not strictly accurate, as I never really met anyone from the temp agency.  I was actually interviewed and "hired" during a time when the multi-billion dollar company had enacted a "hiring freeze".  This is a meaningless term as they continued to bring on staff.  It simply meant that they wanted the same work done at lower salaries and no benefits by people they could terminate more easily.  I can understand such a policy as a short term, probationary measure.  Unfortunately for me, that's not quite what it was. 

About three or four months after I was hired, the company completed plans to move the department into a newly built wing and convert most of the temps to permanent employees.  There weren't quite enough permanent jobs for everyone, but it seemed mostly fair, with a few exceptions.  Two of those were people who transferred in from other departments, neither of which had any experience doing the sort of lab or automation work that or group did.  They were permanent employees already, so their transfers cost two people a shot a benefits for a job they were already doing.  The other major hurdle was the political "I'll hire the people I hang out with" nature of it, but I was somewhat (very) naive and oblivious to that. Even with these problems, it seemed that if one wasn't hired in this wave, there would be another soon enough and the rest of us would be hired then.

Having no seniority, I didn't really like my chances of getting hired, and I wasn't.  I took it hard anyway, because that's how I'm wired (and because some/many of the hires were true slack-jaws, losing out to them makes a person question his worth) but I eventually got over it (obviously not :) ).  What I wasn't prepared for was the discrepancy in treatment between the newly christened permanent employees vs the temps, and the fact that the anticipated new hiring wave was never coming.


From a practical standpoint, my day to day job didn't change much, but the environment or at least my perception of it certainly did.  The temps and permanent employees generally did the exact same work.  The company went out of its way to make sure contractors could not be confused with employees (this was done to protect them from liability), while at the same time expecting loyalty in the form of non-disclosure agreements and contact terms with the temp agency limiting where you could work upon leaving (i.e. not for another pharmaceutical company, nothing like building experience that you won't be allowed to use).  In addition to better pay and health insurance, "real" employees had desks, bonuses, tuition reimbursement, vacation time, picnics & holiday parties (for a while we were banned from these, before someone decided to allow us).  It really hit me that first X-mas, when the VP of our division presented bonus checks to the employees in the middle of the lab, right before the temp got a one week lay-off at Xmas for the holiday shut-down.  The project bonuses really hurt, as there's no way to adequately describe how frustrating it is to work in tandem with people on a project and see the others get a bonus that you won't.   It's baffling to me that none of the upper-management seemed to understand that such things might just sap the morale of the temps.  Actually, it's not all that baffling, but I digress.

Another slap to my ego came when the temp agency actually started providing new staff, with the same qualifications to do the exact same job, who were being paid 25% more than those of us who were already working there.  I'm not sure how it came to light, but when found out, people rightfully asked why we were less valuable than even the new temps?  The department head (may have been a decent scientist, but was absolutely horrific at dealing with people) responded with "they're lucky to have jobs at all".  Eventually, someone bolder than I contacted the VP, who agreed that it was unfair, and increased our rates.

In retrospect,  I should have left as soon as they announced who'd been hired. But, true to form, I listened to people who said that holding a job for less than a year was a resume-killer, so I stayed and hoped for the best,  began hemorrhaging confidence in myself and my employment prospects.   I count it among the worst decisions of my life, right up there with attending a Catholic high school to be with my friends, and convincing myself that I'd be better served trying to be a history teacher than an graphic artist. 

Fast forward two and a half years.  Yes, I am that stupid.  It's a quality I inherited from my beloved grandfather.


A new manager was hired to go between our supervisors and the department head.  I pretty much knew he'd be trouble from the second I laid eyes on him. He was a tall, skinny guy with a smug demeanor who fancied himself a cyclist (of the worst sort, the spandex clad, mega-serious Lance Armstrong wannabe. The guy who's a terror at linear parks, barking commands at pedestrians, dog walkers and roller-bladers who dare to be obstacles in his daily time trial.).  The last led to the usual sycophants suddenly acquiring an interest in cycling as well. Also, the people who'd met him in his previous job described him as  "very driven" in glowing terms.  For me, "driven" usually means "Overbearing, petulant, asshole, who is not be trusted, ever".  I can't say for sure whether I had this definition in mind before dealing with this guy, or whether he inspired it. 

At the first meeting he conducted,  he did the usual synergy and paradigm riddle flowchart and powerpoint tedium, and casually dropping "I will not let the culture here be determined by default" into his closing remarks.  Translation: I'm getting rid of as many of you as I can, and bringing in my own people.   Which was fine.  I was confident in my value to the team, and sure that I could make myself essential enough to the process to survive.  I wasn't about to start cycling, though.  Spandex is a terrible look for a short fat guy and I really should avoid anything that involves balance, dexterity and moving at high speeds with nothing but dorky looking helmet between my skull and Macadamized doom.  After the meeting, we were each to have a review  with the aforementioned manager so he could assess our get to know us and determine our value.


During the review he asked a few questions about  my opinions of the lab, what I saw as positives, negatives, how it worked, etc. Being me, I had no choice but to give honest answers.  I told him frankly that I was worn out by being a temp, that at some point I needed the full benefits, and that I wondered what exactly I was working toward.  He seemed interested and agreeable. Naturally, I was summoned by a temp agency rep (who I'd never met. I'd never dealt with them) a few days later because the driven new manager had expressed concerns over my attitude (admittedly bleak at that point) and because (and this is spectacular) "He had concerns about my loyalty to the company".  I was quick to point out that to the sniveling temp agency rep that I didn't actually work for the company.  He was taken aback, as people tend to be when you make a simple honest statement, and stammered some nonsense about a negative review I gotten 3 years earlier.  I was uncharacteristically witty that day, mockingly asking why if such an easily dismissible employee was in fact, a problem, was I still there?  He spluttered out some more nonsense but needn't have bothered.  I finally knew the score.

The next bombshell came a few weeks later.  The next hiring wave had finally arrived.  We were all about to finally have health insurance, and everything that we groaned about lacking!  The temps were all given one to one meetings with the temp agency rep where we were notified that they would not be hiring any of us, but that they wanted to stay through the hiring process, and train the new hires, while dangling a "severance bonus" as an incentive.   The severance bonus had a whole slew of conditions where you might not get it, and for once in my life, I was able to plainly recognize a bad deal.  I stated my concerns to the rep, and asked that as my actual employer, he transfer me to a new assignment.  He explained in his oily way that his job was to see that we finished the contact with the pharmaceutical company and that only after I was unemployed, could he see about finding me something else.  I stewed for a weekend then made a rare bold move. I quit.

Of course, that was a bad move, too.  Had I been able to tolerate their terms, I'd have been able to collect unemployment for a while and would have been better off letting the temp agency find me a job in field than going back to the pawn shop for $10 an hour.   It didn't help that I was emotionally broken down and ill-suited to dealing with the more reprehensible pawn customers at that point.  Pride will get you every time, I guess, and I have no one to blame for any of this but myself.  Every once in a while, when charting my missteps, I go back to this period and cringe at how far off track I let myself go.  The worst part, I think, is that I was never really going to be happy working in a lab anyway.

If I'm wrong, and there really is a benevolent deity out there,  I'm calling a do-over on my early twenties.  Since I've passed on Pascal's wager, I don't expect to get one.

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