Ephemera

The ramblings of a lunatic expat.

I am Californian who relocated to Melbourne, Australia in 2006..

I'm a manicurist and a madwoman and I do a damn good job at both.
For Jake: This is how I learned to cook a corndog when I was a just a poor country child living in a trailer and I wasn’t big enough to use the Fry Daddy all by myself: Step 1: Get corndog out of freezer. No, not the fridge-freezer, the deep-freeze on the back porch. Don’t wake up the outside dogs or you’ll have to cook some for them, too. Locate giant Costco box of corndogs under all that frozen venison your stepdad won’t let your mom throw out even though it’s been there for six years because his favorite second-cousin butchered the deer himself after he hit it with his El Camino coming home drunk one night from Bass Lake. Step 2: Microwave your corndog. This is much more complicated than it sounds. If you nuke it too long, the breading gets hard and the hotdog goes rubbery. Too little and the hotdog is still cold. The ideal cooking time is one minute on the DEFROST setting and then 30 seconds on high. This is a good time to get your Pepsi out of the drinks fridge in the garage. Always Pepsi, never Coke. We are a Pepsi-drinking, Chevy-driving, God-fearing, Nascar-watching family. Don’t wake up the garage dogs. Step 3: Make your corndog country-fair worthy. Now, this is the special part. Remember the corndogs at the fair? How they’re all nice and crispy? And they didn’t taste like fish like at home because 2 years ago someone made fried fish in the Fry Daddy and the oil hasn’t been changed since? Now you need the gas stove. Turn one of the burners on high. Hold the corndog in the flame, rotating slowly*. This part requires all your concentration. This is an important job. Pretend you’re the guy running the Zipper at the fair. To check for doneness, tap the corndog against the edge of the stove. If it smooshes, you need to to keep it over the flame longer. If it cracks a bit, it’s done. Now you have a perfectly cooked corndog. Eat off a paper plate (wicker plate holders optional) on a tv tray with mustard or ketchup. Some people might also say ranch dressing, but thank god, even I’m not that big of a redneck. *In the event of your corndog burning (Helpful hint - turn cartoons OFF while cooking), start the whole process over again and give the evidence to the dogs. Don’t worry about the stick. They’ll eat that, too.

For Jake:

This is how I learned to cook a corndog when I was a just a poor country child living in a trailer and I wasn’t big enough to use the Fry Daddy all by myself:

Step 1: Get corndog out of freezer. No, not the fridge-freezer, the deep-freeze on the back porch. Don’t wake up the outside dogs or you’ll have to cook some for them, too. Locate giant Costco box of corndogs under all that frozen venison your stepdad won’t let your mom throw out even though it’s been there for six years because his favorite second-cousin butchered the deer himself after he hit it with his El Camino coming home drunk one night from Bass Lake.

Step 2: Microwave your corndog. This is much more complicated than it sounds. If you nuke it too long, the breading gets hard and the hotdog goes rubbery. Too little and the hotdog is still cold. The ideal cooking time is one minute on the DEFROST setting and then 30 seconds on high. This is a good time to get your Pepsi out of the drinks fridge in the garage. Always Pepsi, never Coke. We are a Pepsi-drinking, Chevy-driving, God-fearing, Nascar-watching family. Don’t wake up the garage dogs.

Step 3: Make your corndog country-fair worthy. Now, this is the special part. Remember the corndogs at the fair? How they’re all nice and crispy? And they didn’t taste like fish like at home because 2 years ago someone made fried fish in the Fry Daddy and the oil hasn’t been changed since? Now you need the gas stove. Turn one of the burners on high. Hold the corndog in the flame, rotating slowly*. This part requires all your concentration. This is an important job. Pretend you’re the guy running the Zipper at the fair. To check for doneness, tap the corndog against the edge of the stove. If it smooshes, you need to to keep it over the flame longer. If it cracks a bit, it’s done.

Now you have a perfectly cooked corndog. Eat off a paper plate (wicker plate holders optional) on a tv tray with mustard or ketchup. Some people might also say ranch dressing, but thank god, even I’m not that big of a redneck.

*In the event of your corndog burning (Helpful hint - turn cartoons OFF while cooking), start the whole process over again and give the evidence to the dogs. Don’t worry about the stick. They’ll eat that, too.