Mark Hayward Is My Hero

Another bachelor recipe for those looking for easy food action.

—-

Fancy-Pants Frozen Pizza
With very little planning you can make regular old frozen pizza into a fancy taste treat.

You will need:

• 1 frozen pizza
• 1 can sliced Black Olives
• 1 or 2 Tablespoons chopped onion
• Dried crushed basil

Optional ingredients:

• 1 small can Pineapple Chunks
• ¼ Red or Green Pepper, chopped
• whatever else you like on pizza

• a big knife or pizza cutter

Preheat oven to temp. listed on pizza.  As the oven heats up prepare your ingredients and put them on the pizza.  The real secret of fancying-up a pizza is the Basil.  Basil is the gate-keeper between boring and fancy.  Don’t go crazy with it, a nice sprinkling will do.  For added panache, I like to top my cooked pizza with a little hot sauce.

Here’s another bachelor recipe for those of you who need it.

——

Macaroni & Cheese Variations
I find that if I add a little broccoli I feel a lot less lame for eating macaroni that came from a box.

You will need:

• 1 box of macaroni and cheese mix (I prefer Kraft Mac ‘n Cheese Spirals. I can’t explain it, but the spirals just taste better.)
• a generous handfull of raw broccoli

• a small pot
• a small knife
• a spoon (can be small too if consistency makes you happy)

Cook the mac & cheese according to the instructions on the box. [See Tip 1] While the noodles are cooking, chop the broccoli. [See Tip 2] When the noodles are finished cooking, throw the broccoli into the water with the noodles and count to 5. Don’t overcook the broccoli because that’s nasty. Drain the noodles and broccoli. Mix in sauce etc. Enjoy.

Another, much saltier, and less healthy version is to substitute the broccoli with cut-up hot dogs (or Tofu Pups for that matter). Just remember to poke holes in the skin if you microwave them.

Tips:
1) Be careful not to overcook the noodles because that’s nasty. In fact I often undercook them by a minute or two since I like noodles a little Al Dente (Italian for “not gross and squishy”).
2) When cutting broccoli I find it easiest to cut off a small branch, turn it upside-down and cut down most of the way into the stalk. Then pull the stalk apart the rest of the way. This helps to prevent the annoying little buds from going everywhere except your food.

My bachelor buddies have wanted me to publish my bachelor recipes for a while now so here you go guys. These are recipes that are about as fast and easy as you can get while still having some nutritional value. This is about as low-brow as food can get, but if you tend to stand over the sink eating cold beans from a can with a spoon, this will be a big step up. If you are interested in higher-end food I will post some more involved recipes later.

Mark’s Not-Too-Hot-To-Eat-Right-This-Instant Veggie Ramen

Ramen is delicious, but when it’s finished it has virtually no food value, and it’s too hot to eat immediately. This last fact is especially annoying when you are so hungry that you could die.

You will need:

• 1 pkg ramen soup
• frozen corn (about three handfuls)
• frozen spinach (one ice cube sized chunk)
• a generous handful of raw broccoli cut into small pieces

• a small pot
• a spoon
• a REALLY big knife

Cook up your favorite flavor of Ramen. While the noodles are cooking you can chop the broccoli [See Tip 1]. After turning off the heat and putting in the flavor packet, drop the raw broccoli into the water. Stir the broccoli into the soup and let it sit for at least 10 seconds. Use the REALLY big knife, on a cutting board, to lop off an ice cube sized chunk from the block of frozen spinach. Avoid lopping off any fingers in the process. [See Tip 2] Add the three handfuls of frozen corn and the chunk of frozen spinach. The spinach is not enough to really affect the flavor much, but it adds some nutrition, and cools the soup down just a little bit more. Stir until everything has thawed. You now have a more or less healthy pot of soup that is the perfect temperature for immediate consumption. Pick up your spoon and eat directly out of the pot. Feel free to sit down to read or watch TV instead of eating while standing over the sink.

Tips:
1) When cutting broccoli I find it easiest to cut off a small branch, turn it upside-down and cut down most of the way into the stalk. Then pull the stalk apart the rest of the way. This helps to prevent the annoying little buds from going everywhere except your food.
2) For lopping off a chunk of frozen spinach while NOT lopping off your fingers, I recommend one hand griping the handle of the knife, and the other hand open flat, pushing down on the back of the blade.

Super-awesome Sea spider. (I’m pretty sure that’s the Latin name)

photo: Paul H. Yancey Ph.D.

Sometimes it’s best to go straight to the source. I just found this page with a large number of very raw photos of deep sea critters. The site is from Paul H. Yancey Ph.D., who is a professor of Biology at Whitman College in Washington State. The pages are a little hard to read, but there are lots and lots of photos, especially of things that you don’t normally get to see like worms, sea spiders, and the cool weird stuff that I don’t know anything about.

Last Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, was the first-ever show by the Happy Hour Heroes. We are: Steve Brown, Mark Hayward , and Aaron Bonk. This group is the brainchild of Steve Brown, who bills himself as the Happy Hour Hero in his solo work. The idea is to be a modern-day Rat Pack with tricks.

The show was part of a party celebrating two years of existence for the thrift store This Way Out that is in the basement of the Beachland Ballroom, as well as the grand opening of Shoparooni, Cleveland’s newest boutique, that is coincidentally owned by Steve Brown and his wife Marlee.

I was pretty nervous for this show because the three of us had never worked together, and Aaron and I had never even seen each other’s shows before. Despite that, and not rehearsing, the show went really well. Of course it will get better as we do more together, but it was a fantastic start.

I was reading up on the original Rat Pack a bit today, and it sounds like they were at the center of a really incredible time in entertainment history. Apparently they would just show up at each other’s gigs and do a group show even if that wasn’t on the bill. The marquees sometimes would read something like, “DEAN MARTIN – MAYBE FRANK – MAYBE SAMMY” That’s pretty cool.

We did two sets, alternating with some bands in the other room, and between sets this exchange was overheard:

“What’s after the band?”

“There’s another set by that guy who looks like Letterman, and the two bald dudes.”

“Oh cool.”

Today was great. I got to got to a meeting of the local 3 Rivers MARC (Model A Restorers Club). Actually, this was no ordinary meeting either, it was a seminar on paint and brakes too. After setting my alarm for 7pm instead of 7am, I got up late, walked the dog, and then raced down to Main St. Motors in West Newton PA.

The meeting took place in Keith Waltower’s garage, Main St. motors, and it is an awesome place. He was working on 4 or 5 cars upstairs, and the basement had another 20 or so cars in storage. Some of them were Keith’s, but I think most belonged to other people who rent space.

(more…)

I just got an email today from Jonathan Burns saying that he saw me on Letterman’s website. I didn’t know what he was talking about so I went to the site, and lo and behold, there I am on the front page in the highlights slideshow! (I’m number 3) That is so awesome! Check it out quickly because who knows how long it will last.

In case you missed my appearance on the show, you can see it here.

I LOVE giant squids.  The show MonsterQuest on the History Channel just aired a show all about the quest for the giant squid.  It was pretty fun.  I don’t think I ever want to get in salt water again.  I’m not going to spoil the end for you, but I will say that they find some neat stuff.

The show airs again in 3 1/2 hours, Friday November 16th at 3am.

Over the weekend my wife and I went to a great craft fair in Pittsburgh called Handmade Arcade. One of the vendors that really caught my eye was a t-shirt printing joint called SquidFire out of Baltimore Maryland. They have a great, unusual take on deep-sea creatures, and they have all kinds of stuff with giant (or regular I suppose) squids all over it. There are other images besides sea creatures too….

Maybe living  on top of a hill isn’t so great after all.  Lenore, Vader and I were in the bedroom as a thunderstorm was rolling in last night.  Lenore and I were in the bedroom getting ready to go to bed, and Vader was in there because he was freaking out that the thunderstorm was going to kill us all.  Turns out that the dog may have been on to something.

As we were talking, a particularly loud clap of thunder sounded outside and there was a flash of blue light right above my head.  I couldn’t see it, but Lenore sure could.  She said that there was an arc of electricity that stretched from the window to the ceiling fan that was right over my head.  So that arc went about six feet into the house in order to miss my head by about a foot and a half.  Eep.

Vader freaked out while Lenore and I discussed how crazy it was that lightning came into our house.  Maybe we only think we’re that much smarter than dogs.