Walk Softly and Carry a Big Schtick
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Below are the 10 most recent journal entries recorded in the "Chaz Boston Baden" journal:[<< Previous 10 entries]
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09:20 am
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Speakeasy Party at Baycon 2013-05-26
My friends and I are hosting a room party Sunday night at Baycon this Memorial Day weekend, with a "Speakeasy" theme. It's to support the KC in 2016 Worldcon Bid.
Are you going to be at this convention? Why not put on your '20s or '30s outfits and join us! If you're looking for inspiration, anything from Boardwalk Empire, Downton Abbey or The Great Gatsby will do fine.
We'll have food on sticks, and "tea" & "lemonade" drinks in teacups. Enjoy a gin and tonic, or a whisky and soda in a teacup. (We'll even serve you actual tea, or lemonade lemonade if you're not imbibing.)
The password is GOATS.
The year is 1926. The name of the place: Pendergast Cafe.
Current Mood:  chipper
Tags: party
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10:08 pm
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Cajun Pork Tacos (Experimental Recipe)
I pulled out one of my 3 1/2 quart slow cookers, and bought 3 lbs. of boneless pork shoulder country strip to put in it along with half a cup of water and 2 TB of Tony Chachere's Creole* Seasoning Mix. Put it on high, we'll see if it's tasty tomorrow!
*(Tony C. was a Cajun but when he started marketing his seasoning mix, Cajun was still considered an insult so he labeled it Creole instead.)
EDIT: On my Foobcake post, Sandy Cohen suggests using the spices as a dry rub, and that on a low heat it probably won't burn even if I leave out the water, and maybe add some lime juice. I also think that I'll try 3 TB next time. 12 hours was plenty of time (about half of the time was low, half on high) to get it just about completely shredded.
Current Mood: chipper
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07:46 pm
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March and April photos uploaded
Photos visible on my website now include:
- LASFS/Aftermeetings
- Picnics, Outings, Family and Friends
- Conventions
- Meetings
- Miscellaneous
Current Location: Anaheim
Current Mood: chipper
Tags: anime conji, conventions, pictures, scifi
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01:40 pm
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Taco Party at Anime Conji 2013, part 2
Detailed notes and recipe links.
- Small round 1.5 qt (Black), Soyrizo, 3 packages, divided. Need to use a larger size next time.
- Small round 1.5 qt (Black), Cuban Black Beans, 2 cans. Need to use a larger size and fill it.
- Small round 2 qt (White), Velveeta (2 lb.) and jar of salsa. If we ever do it again we need to stir it several times during the prep time. Better would be larger crock with nacho cheese sauce.
- Medium oval 4.5 qt (Geoff's), Velveeta (2 lb.) and a can of chili. See above.
- XL Oval 6 qt (silver), Carnitas, 9 lbs. of meat. Need more next time!
- XL Oval 5.5 qt (black), Tex Mex Shredded Beef, 8 lbs.
- XL Oblong 5 qt (white), Chicken, 8 lbs. This was too much meat, and the large amount of garlic powder and cumin actually caused it to cement together. Need to re-tool this recipe for large crockpots.
- Large round 4.5 qt (blue), Ground Beef, 6 lb., using 3 packets of the Trader Joe's taco seasonings and 3 cans of diced tomatos.
- Large round 4.5 qt (old blue), Chicken Mole, 7 lbs. of meat, 3 boxes of Rogelio Bueno brand Mole Poblano sauce. Probably should have used 2 boxes, and no more than 6 lbs. of cut-up chicken breasts. (Got a good price at "Sprouts" on the chicken.)
- Large round 4.5 qt (green), Spicy Pork with Peanut Sauce, 3 lbs. of meat. Should have made a bigger batch, or just have lots of Carnitas on hand.
- Medium round 3.5 qt (brown), BBQ Pork, 3 lbs. Used a bottle of barbecue sauce. It got too hot and melted through the slow cooker liner. I don't plan to repeat this next year.
- Medium round 3.5 qt (orange), Teriyaki Chicken, 6 lbs. This was pushing the capacity of the pot, should have kept it to 5 lbs. Used the Kikkoman Teriyaki Sauce/Marinade. Might use a different sauce if I repeat this one.
- Shredded lettuce/salad -- got two bags at Sprouts of mostly-lettuce.
- Also got a bag of shredded carrots.
- Sour cream, 2 pints. Could have used another.
- Green onions (Scallions), chopped.
- Onion, chopped.
- Tortilla shells, corn, 12.
- Tortillas, 6-inch flour "fajita size," 192. I was using a rough guide of 4 tacos per lb. of meat. Next time I want to try a ratio of 6 to 1.
- Tortilla chips, big bag from Costco. When we ran out of tortillas, these were handy. We had three serving dishes, so generally only one ended up empty at a time.
- Cheese, shredded, 3 lbs. Used one serving dish, should have had two.
- Rice, one batch from a 2-lb. bag. Should have bought more rice, should have had two rice cookers going.
- Salsa, jar from Trader Joe's. Perhaps have more than one bottle.
- Tapatio hot sauce. Actually went through half a bottle!
- Guacamole. About 4 or 5 packages of prepared guacamole. We served it in a dish, but perhaps we should have just served it directly from the package it came in. And we needed more.
- Freeze-Dried Jalapeños. I saw a jar of these at Sprouts, and was surprised how popular they were.
- Moon Pies, box of assorted mini. Could easily have gone through two boxes.
- Limes, 4, cut in wedges. Probably could have gone through twice as many.
- Oranges, cut in wedges. Not popular.
Things we forgot to serve: chopped tomato, cilantro.
Should have had signs outside the room explaining what they would find inside the room. You can come back in line for seconds. Due to limited space, we ask you to move outside with your tacos and coffee. Yes it's all free, sponsored by Animé Los Angeles and Costume Camp; tips are gratefully accepted. If we've run out of something let us know, we have more taco fillings to bring out later. We'll be closed from time to time for cleaning and re-stocking, please bear with us...
Current Location: Santa Ana, CA
Current Mood: chipper
Tags: anime conji, conventions, taco party
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12:42 am
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Taco Party at Anime Conji 2013 - Rough notes
Preliminary notes: We gave away 264 stickers to people coming through the door. Typically
the line outside the door was about 22 people deep, it didn't extend all the way to the
end of the hall.
9 o'clock meats were: Carnitas* (shredded pork), "Shredded" chicken (a recipe that needs
to go in for re-tooling), and Tex Mex Shredded beef*. (*= recipe available.) We ran out of
those a little before 10 o'clock, and because we didn't have any rice you couldn't even
enjoy some sauce-soaked rice.
10 o'clock we put out: BBQ Pulled Pork (which was just a jar of sauce and a crockpot of
meat), Chicken Mole (which was a Mole Poblano sauce and the cut-up chicken breast meat),
and Ground Beef (using the Trader Joe's Taco Seasoning mix).
11 o'clock, we brought out the Spicy Pork with Peanut Sauce*, and the Teriyaki Chicken
(which was meat with the Kikkoman Teriyaki Sauce & Merinade). We ended at midnight with
half a spoonful of chicken left.
We had tortillas and taco shells for 208 tacos but I know we had some losses due to
breakage, we ran out of them between 10 and 11 I think; rice ran out by about 10 o'clock
because we only had one batch. We had can-opener failure so we didn't re-stock the beans
which ran out quickly, should have had a larger crockpot. We also should have had a larger
crockpot for the Soyrizo so we could have started with all 36 oz. (In general, re-filling
a crockpot is problematical.)
Cheese/nacho dips didn't work out well, next time we should just get a #10 can of nacho
cheese sauce and try that.
The freeze-dried jalapeños were a surprise hit. We should have cut up 8 limes, not 4, and
the oranges should have been just cut into quarters to make them obviously a side snack
and not a garnish. I forgot to unpack the tomato and the cilantro, perhaps I should
provide a checklist for the prep crew? We had other garnishes and toppings; the guacamole
was quite a hit.
Simplified menu for next time: Instead of three kinds of pork, we'll just have plenty of
Carnitas. The ground beef and the shredded beef are both tasty, so I might keep both of
those; the Chicken Mole is a really big hit and dead easy. So for prep, I can pre-mix the
two batches of spices, bring the commercial spice mix and the cans and boxes of pre-made
sauces, tomatos and so forth. Forget the two kinds of cheese sauce, one thing of nacho
cheese is fine (and it makes a huge amount).
The two packages of cut-up lettuce/salad mix were enough, likewise one bag of shredded
carrots. 4 cans of Trader Joe's Cuban Black Beans may not be enough, suggest bumping up
the crockpot size to at least Medium Round 3.5 qt and filling it with 6 cans. 3 Soyrizo
may be enough, we should bring something to clean up spilled soy chorizo from the floor
(and maybe a hand vac too).
Rice cooker+crockpot is more work than deploying two rice cookers, so we should just
borrow a second rice cooker.
We had four or five guacamole packages and probably could have used more; either use a
bigger serving bowl, or just put out the plastic containers and let people serve
themselves directly from them.

There are probably never going to be enough Moon Pies, but we could have had two or three
boxes. If we do something like this 9-12 thing, perhaps announce that we'll be closed for
five minutes at 9:55 and 10:55 to do a little refreshing? And buy triple of certain
items.
Label the donation jar "TIPS."
Current Location: Anaheim
Current Mood:  exhausted
Tags: anime conji, conventions, taco party
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11:00 pm
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Crockpot tortillas
Will this work?
I want to warm up some tortillas, but I don't want to dry them out.
I'm thinking, take a bag of tortillas, and some aluminum foil. Wrap foil around four or six tortillas at a time, and put them in the crockpot. Put it on "warm." Maybe put a little water in the bottom? Come back in an hour, will I have what I want?
Current Location: Ojai, CA
Current Mood: chipper
Tags: food
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09:15 pm
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Crockpot inventory
It's just about time to inventory my crockpots.
I've got the new 3x1.5qt triple model. I know I have at least 2 of the small round gallon slow cookers, and at least 2 of the standard medium round 5-qt units. I have the large black oval with the lock-down lid, the white oval, and I recently bought a large white oblong; I think they're all 6-qt. And I bought a little 2-qt slow cooker. I also have a rice cooker.
I might have more than that. I need to figure it out and plan out the meats I'll be buying to cook in them. (1.5 lb/qt is the multiplier I'll be using.)
I've said before that I have too many to remember how many. It's time for me to find out.
Current Location: Ojai, CA
Current Mood: chipper
Tags: food
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05:22 pm
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Taco Party plans
Pork (Carnitas)
Beef (Taco-seasoned ground beef)
Chicken (Garlic/cumin)
Soyrizo (veg. chorizo)
Rice
Cuban black beans
Cheese dip (Cheese/salsa)
Fixings: tortillas, taco shells, tortilla chips, onions, scallions, cilantro, lettuce, tomato, shredded cheese, sour cream, guacamole, hot sauces, salsas, orange slices, lime wedges.
Thai Pork with Peanut sauce
Pot Roast (beef)
Teriyaki Chicken
BBQ Pulled Pork
Chicken Mole
Tex Mex Shredded Beef
Queso dip (Cheese/chili)
Allergy warnings: peanut, gluten, corn, soy, dairy, tyramines.
So what am I forgetting?
Current Music: Andrew Sisters - "Hold Tight"
Tags: food, taco party
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05:01 pm
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Convention registration form
A while back, I created an All-purpose convention registration form. I can print this out and use it when promoting Anime Los Angeles, Costume Camp, Loscon, or anything else.
Current Mood: chipper
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11:00 am
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Small Cooker Adventures
I have a 1.5-quart slow cooker (actually, I have three of them, but I'm only using one in this post) and I put in 2.2 lbs. cut-up chicken, about half a cup of water, 1 TB garlic powder and 1 TB ground comin.
My hope is that tonight I can serve it over pasta. I'll let you know how it goes.
The three-crock unit is a bit cumbersome. I wish I had three small individual crockpots. The convenience of only having one plug to plug into the wall is outweighed by the extra space it takes up!
Current Mood: chipper
Tags: food
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