Sunday Gravy: The Return! Season nine premiere.

Hey everyone!

How we all doing? How have you been? What the fuck am I even doing here for the NINTH SEASON IN A ROW!

Welcome back to Sunday Gravy!

One of DFO’s blatant attempts to keep you entertained during the long, horrible and interminable off-season. With food! Lovely, homemade, delicious food!

I must be fucking insane!

Sure as shit, here we are again. 

I think I need to give a disclaimer before we get this season going. I am going to try to last through this entire upcoming season and I still hope to provide you with the traditional Sunday Gravy wit, class, vulgarity and deliciousness that you are familiar with but… I have no fucking idea if I can make it. None.

Some of you good folks already know this but during the past year I took on a new job. No, I didn’t get a new job I just decided I needed twice the responsibility, grief, emails and hassle so I’m running 2 departments instead of my usual one.

Pretty goddamn smart huh?

No. It is not. It’s not smart, it’s also pretty fucking far from fun and it’s a goddamn pain in my fucking ass if we’re being blunt.

But? I’m straight up killing this shit. I own this entire building motherfuckers. All this shit right here? That shit is MINE!

With the responsibility came a pretty fucking user-friendly increase. Basically I’m finally getting paid pretty close to worth. Money-wise it kicks ass but I do not have the extra available time at work that I used to. 

Concept is I make enough spare change these next couple of years to take two years off of my 45 year goddamn sentence of hard labor and retire at 65 instead of 67. That’s a goal right there. If it works.

No shit, been dragging my ass out of bed for work for closing in on half a motherfucking century. Nobody said it was going to be like this. I had no warning either. Nothing

Don’t tell anyone but I used to do about 90% of the writing/editing for Sunday Gravy at work. I’m not sure how sustainable that will be this year.

For a life update; I am getting pretty fucking good at my Portuguese lessons and I’m making an initial recon visit to Porto in September. If you all know me, and you probably do a this point, my ass is going to be fully researched up and ready to bring you a real Boots on the Ground from that motherfucker. Including a culinary tour and a boat tour of the Douro Valley, Portugal’s version of Napa Valley.

Still. It’s a long time to NFL Opening Day in September and there’s work to be done.

Again, let’s see how far we can make this Sunday Gravy season go. I may not be positive I can do it…

But I can try, DAMMIT! I can do that!

Let’s find out how it goes together, M’kay?

And away we go!

Today’s menu had an original origin story. Since I remain a “work-on-site-every-fucking-day” kind of guy we actually see our customers/clients face-to-face!

Weird, right?

Our story started with a customer giving the crew some fresh fruit from her yard.

An entire bag full of these.

Everyone said “Thanks” then right as she left everyone said “What the fuck is that?” I was pretty sure I recognized the fruit on the left but the varietal on the right had me flummoxed. It looked kind of like an Asian pear.

These would turn out to be a persimmon and a guava. Having not much experience fucking with either of these I thought I would experiment, so I took a couple of each home.

This is Senor Guava. It was fucking delicious! Those seeds in the middle though? Them some hard motherfuckers right there. I absolutely loved the flavor but honestly by the time I got around to trying these strange and exotic fruits out the guava may have “turned” a bit. I will definitely revisit these down the road.

Now let’s get a look at the persimmon.

This was also very tasty. It reminded me of a cross between an apple and a pear.

Brain started processing and then I remembered, I’ve made a marinade using Asian pear in the past and this is kind-a sort-a-similar in a half-ass kind of way. The brain locked in on an idea.

Imma make some goddamn kalbi-style ribs!

Korean style Kalbi ribs!

4 pounds of beef short ribs cut “kalbi” or “flanken” style. This is thin cut with a link of about 3 bones attached to the side.

1 Asian pear persimmon peeled, cut and into bits. You can also use a couple of kiwis here instead.

1 medium white onion peeled and chopped.

8-10 garlic cloves peeled.

1 chunk of ginger peeled and rough chopped

1/2 cup of soy sauce

1/2 cup of sake or rice wine vinegar

1 tablespoon of sesame oil

1 tablespoon of fish sauce (my new infatuation)

1 tablespoon of red pepper flake

1 tablespoon of black pepper

1/2 tablespoon of gochugaru

1/2 cup of dark brown sugar.

Let’s start a marinade!

Get all of your wet ingredients in a bowl and combine. Oh shit! Now we’re talking. Let’s make this fucker sing.

A little brown sugar action. Hey! I know…

Spicy! Mix in the spices and give it a good stir.

Now let’s get the veggie action going.

That’s your onion, yer garlic, yer persimmon.

Now, to the protein.

Why just look at it! There could be anything in there! “Celebrating True Filipino Goodness” indeed.

Let’s take a look shall we?

Seafood City is the destination for all of your Filipino cooking needs. Plus, it’s right next door to Jollibee!

First thing we’re going to do is rinse off those ribs. These motherfuckers have been cut across the bone with a band saw and you definitely don’t want to chomp down on any bone bits. Dry the ribs with a couple of paper towels. Then dump them unceremoniously into a 1 gallon zip-top baggie.

Add in the marinade and seal.

Bagged and tagged!

These will refrigerate overnight.

Next day get your charcoal grill going and prepare the rest of the good shit.

Let’s make some fried rice as a side dish. BACON fried rice in fact.

Always remember! You start with “old, cold” pre-cooked rice. Get your ass to choppin’!

Ginger, white onion, garlic and green onion. The usual suspects.

Now let’s make this undeniably bacon fried rice.

Keep building. Onion goes in next.

You think this bastard doesn’t smell fucking fantastic? Smell again. This goes until the onions are translucent and the bacon is cooked but not too cooked, ya know? It will finish in the rice.

Next we have the rice and peas and carrots, hoisin, soy sauce, fish sauce and sesame oil and a couple of grinds of Szechuan pepper. Combine.

That’s nice. Best thing about fried rice is you can customize it about a billion fucking different ways and it’s always delicious.

I was in the kitchen for this meal and Brother TAJ handled the grillage.

So what about the main event?

It starts with fire!

That’s a pretty friendly little grill set-up there.

Let’s get a view from the SkyCam.

Tasty!

Cook the ribs for about 4-5 minutes per side. You want some char along the edges.

Kind of want to grab this shit right off the grill and dive in face fucking first, don’tcha?

Gather up all of the meaty goodness.

I mean…C’mon! Look at this shit! You want to make sweet, sweet, messy love to those ribs.

That’s a damn good photo. You can almost taste that shit from here.

Now?

Make a plate! The fuck are you waiting for?

Today we’ll be having extra meat as our vegetable dish.

You know exactly what the fuck we’re dealing with here. It’s smoky, fatty, crispy, chewy with some heat from the gochugaru, some funk from the fish sauce and soy, the sweetness from the brown sugar plays a big role. Then you add in the bacon fried rice to the equation?

Shit, man. That’s living mighty goddamn right! AND… It’s really easy to make. Trickiest thing you’ll probably encounter is finding the ribs cut “for kalbi” which is where your Asian/ethnic market comes to the rescue.

And here we are. 

For the record I’m still a Monday through Friday vegetarian, or weekend carnivore if you prefer and I’m feeling great. Still plan on keeping that going. This also means that on the weekends I can cook and enjoy some serious cholesterol soaked goodness. 

And I’m bringing enough for every fucking body. 

Thanks for being there faithful reader. Let’s keep this shit going. 

See you next week. 

PEACE!