I am not a happy camper today

I use a recipe from Steve Raichlen (I have three of his grilling cookbooks and love them all)

1/2 stick butter
4 slices bacon, slivered
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 medium size cabbage (about 2 lbs)
1/4 cup bbq sauce (yours or purchased)
salt and pepper

melt 1T butter in a skillet. Add the bacon and onion. Cook until bacon begins to brown (3-5 mins). Remove bacon and onions from skillet, reserving drippings.

Make a ring out of crumpled up aluminum foil (about 2" high and slightly smaller than the diameter of the cabbage). Core the cabbage. Cut remaining butter into med dice. Stir bbq sauce into bacon and onions. Prop the cabbage in the foil ring, cored end up. Fill the center with bacon & onion mixture and as many of the butter cubes as will fit. Season with salt and pepper. Brush the outside with bacon drippings Wrap with foil or grill without foil but the outer leaves will be black -- you can pull them off at the end (I wrap mine...) Grill over indirect heat for 1 to 1.5 hours.

Gluttons for punishment, like bug bites?

Mame you should make a list of all the stuff that is/was wrong.

Post it online or twitter/facebook it.
call it s
"**** ma cook says."

seriously though, use the list when you take the next contract.

Yeah. Mosquitos at night, biting flies in the daytime, leaches, poison ivy, sunburn, and dislocated jaws from smiling when some self declared photographer trots out the camera every few hours.

JPB - I added bbq sauce and it was fab, but now here's a delicious one for you - I used beef tenderloin, but you can use any meat:

3 lbs of meat
3/4 cup sodium reduced soy (the real stuff is toooooo salty)
1/3 c. melted butter

that's it.

Okay, so I changed it to:

1/4 c. soy
1/4 c. water
1/4 c. worcestershire sauce
1/3 c. melted butter
huge heaping soup spoon of roasted minced garlic

Then just roast as you would normally.

This is SOOOOO good! I also made a pkg of gravy and added this sauce to it - wonderful!

And I added mushrooms, onions, and parboiled cauliflower to the roast during the last 20 minutes.

Try it and tell me what you think.


On other matters, one of the ATVs had a flat yesterday and we went to town and got it fixed, but today it went flat again. And for the some reason, the night drillers didn't move the drill to the next hole. Don't know what they were doing for 7 hours, but Alex had to go out there in the a.m. and help them sight it. Whatever. He worked all day and has to go back out in half an hour. At least he had a good dinner

Tomorrow - salmon fillets - and I have the most wonderful dijon marinade for it. It's simply heaven.

I tried a new salmon recipe the other day - a crust made out of bread crumbs,
shredded parmesan and fresh basil (shredded), baked in the oven (I covered
it with alu foil for a while). It was so good.

So what's your dijon sauce like?

Oh good, you found the thread with the recipe

That sounds like a really nice crust. I will get you the recipe tomorrow (it's in the ktichen), but again, it's under 5 ingredients, likely in your kitchen already.

Oops, CJ - I see I forgot to give you the recipe. Will be back later to confirm, but I think it's 2 T Dijon, 1 T oil, 1 T honey, dill and s & p.

Two more things have happened here... 1) the drill pump broke and they can't fix it. The foreman (company owner) has buggered off for a 4 day long weekend. He made the drillers drive 4 hours each way (to the town he was in) for a part and it turned out not to be the problem. The second thing is one of the helpers just up and quit - didn't show up yesterday morning, so the driller had to go out (to do what, exactly, since the drill wasn't working?) by himself. The helper was part of a deal with the native tribe here - our company has to train two of their people to work this job. Well, seeing as how he quit (with no notice), I wonder if this outfit will honour that contract. I also notice breakfast is getting later and later - It's supposed to be at 5:30 but now I see drillers straggling in at 6:10, 6:15... our guys are all here at 5:30, but they seem to do what they want.

Edit: CJ, I think there is also 1 T of lemon juice in that marinade.

doesnt sound good. Is this a auxilliary mudpump or the circulation pump on the rig?
Sounds like theres gonna be lotsa down time till the pump issue is taken care of.?

DO they require licensing of drillers and helpers in the province youre in ?(Quebec?). Licensing usually takes care of the periodic childishness that helpers sometimes display. I hate it when they hold you up by quittiing unexpectadly. Ever sionce the several US states required licensing, the drillers have gotten waay more professional (And fewer rigs get all boogered up from too much down pressure and hammy hand operators).

PS, I hope the drillers are getting paid by the foot and not by the hour

So waths fer SUnday Bekkrass?

Yes, they're getting paid by the metre, and no, there's no licensing. They're getting later and later for breakfast every day. It was supposed to be 5:30 a.m. with departure at 6:00 a.m., but they have started coming in at 6:10, leaving at 6:20 or 6:30, but today they did shift change at camp since they only have one truck, so it was 7:30 but nobody thought to tell the cook that. Consequently, their bacon and fried potatoes were dried out - too bad! The driller (sans helper) left camp at 8:30!! No excuse for that at all.

The night crew fixed the pump and drilled 60 metres so they're back on board. I don't know what kind of pump it is. The owner fashions his own drills, so I don't even know what it is.

The helper is Indian, and sorry to say, this happens all the time up here. The only time it doesn't happen is if it's his profession (rather than something to earn a few quick bucks) or if it's a fly camp and he can't get out. In the North North, they work for a few days and wander off, never to be seen again. The norther you get, the more this happens. The Inuit are renowned for this. And of course it's unprofessional, but we all know to expect it. Everyone has a list of names to call just for that reason. The government wants the companies to include the natives when the project is close to their land, so basically everybody hires one or two in various jobs, but if you hire more than that, you've got a real headache on your hands.

If you were drilling in the middle of a big city how many unemployed people would you need to hire before you got a goodun, someone who liked the work and was capable.
The problem is not with the Innuit, its with people in general.

No, the problem is with their culture and ours. They don't mesh well. Like I said, the farther north you go, the more we encounter this. There is less interaction between the two cultures. I've worked with several drilling companies who had native drillers who were quite serious about their profession. Ditto with native core splitters. But in my cases (to date), they were not in the Arctic or northern Canada. That's not to say it's not possible to find someone who will stick it out, but that's their general cultural behaviour. There's nothing wrong with it, per se, but it makes it damned difficult to get the job done. Isn't it like the aborigines going walkabout?

Anyway, I don't know why anyone would want to be a helper - it's bloody hard work and boring to boot. I don't blame anyone for taking off.

Thats pretty much a myth.
Like you say its the culture. Never having to work (as we see it) not having seen their parents working 9-5 or regular 8 hour day. Never having that expectation placed upon them.
The parrallels between innuit and aboriginal are amazingly similar.

I agree. In Pierre Berton's book, The Arctic Grail - The Quest for the Northwest Passage, he was recounting the various explorations made by Brits... I forget which one (probably Rae), but one of them wrote that he travelled with the Inuit for a while and was surprised that they left their elderly and/or injured family members in the snow to die. He theorized that it made sense once you look at life from their perspective - how harsh it was in the winters, how hard it was just to keep yourself alive - it was a commonly accepted practice then. Definitely culturally different.

CJ: You remember that salmon we talked about? Well, a couple of the guys stayed in town so I had leftover, probably about a pound. Anyway, I made this awesome salmon pasta salad - the main thing is the dressing! You can put anything in it - I put in orange peppers, grilled corn, celery, gr. onion, frozen peas (thawed, of course), and salmon. But the dressing is too much for a small salad, so reduce it - it makes about 1.5 cups. You can use it on regular salad, too, if you like:

Puree or blend:
2 cloves garlic
1/4 red pepper
1 tsp thyme
1/2 c. red wine vinegar
2 tsp dijon
1 c. olive oil
1 tsp sugar (optional)
1 tsp ea salt and pepper

Then you can add some mayo if you like it creamy looking. It's yummy.

The pumpkin pie went over well, too.

And tomorrow they're having Cajun Pork Chops in Gravy, sweet potato pie, Mexican corn, homemade coleslaw with a vinaigrette, and pasta salad again, until it's gone. And a peach/nectarine shortcake (well, they don't seem to be eating the fruit raw) - or maybe a pie. They seem to like pie.

~~~~~

But the drillers are driving me a little nuts. They are no longer sticking to the dinner schedule so I'm cooking all over the place. Today the Foreman (owner) showed up (for the first time since Wed night) and I told him it's either 5:30 or 7:30, take your pick and he said they were (showing up at the appointed times) and I said they weren't (the last two days have been totally wonky), and sure enough, the 7:30 guy showed up at 6:00 and I'd already shut the bbq off, so he apologized and we'll just see what happens in the a.m. I don't normally get feisty but come on...

Okay, now the drillers' water pump is broken, their drill is broken, and their generator is broken

On the good side, I'm making a Maple Sugar Pie (ugh) tomorrow. Chef LeBlanc has a recipe on epicurious.com and I'm trying it tomorrow. If it's any good and you want the recipe, let me know. Toute suite for me!

I see that a lot - 1 stick of butter - what the heck is that? In terms of cups, pounds, tablespoons?

4 ounces

Four ounces per stick, so it calls for two ounces.

Thank you both.