Mac and Alison’s Porcupine Balls

 

A groundswell of interest has risen over Mac’s revelation at Willow the other night that he is a past master of the pressure cooker, the mostdangerous single device in the Socotra Test Kitchen. Check that. The pressurecooker is the only device that actually could produce high velocity shrapnelduring the cooking process.

The deep-fat fryer also provides a rich threatenvironment for the sensory altered experimental chef, and that is not at all areach to the most deadly industrial cooking device that combines the danger of both, the pressure fryer. Thatdevice is normally found in fast-food restaurants that specialize in chicken,and the beauty of it is that is combines the inherent danger of really hot oilwith the possibility of catastrophic explosion.

The is, by the by, precisely how an itinerant gas station owner from Corbin, KY,got his start as a global icon. Harland Sanders pumped gas and sold friedchicken, which he served in his house next to the gas station. That might havebeen that, save for the expansion of the Eisenhower Interstate System in the1950s. I-75, the fabled pavement that generally follows the path of the oldDixie Highway from the Soo Locks to Alligator Alley in Florida, by-passed once-bustling Corbin, and at the age when most of us are dreaming of socialsecurity, Harlan found his gas station out of business.

(KFC Icon Colonel Harland Sanders inhis trademark white suit. It is rumored that the original was fashioned witharmor plate due to the risk of exloding pullets.)

He took the proceeds from his first check from the SSA and started driving aroundmiddle America with a secret mixture of a few dozen spices, and a potentiallydeadly pressure fryer. The strangely compelling chicken he produced changed thehistory of Japan, among other nations, and led directly to Loving That ChickenFrom Popeye’s and the outbreak of obesity in neighborhoods adjacent to thefranchises.

I would like to experiment with an industrial plant, but have not got around toequipping the Test Kitchen with a rig. But I digress.

Analert reader who is smarter than I am about potentially hazardous cookingdevices forwarded her recipe for Porcupine Balls, an unsettling name for atasty mealtime treat that enters the pantheon of the Socotra House Cloak andDagger cookbook in a manner that unlike Mac’s pressure cooker version, can beprepared in a conventional non-nuclear kitchen.

Mac was a little foggy on how long he cooked his meatballs in the pressure cooker,and I expect it is a trial-and-error thing, waiting either for the explosion orthe perfect duration of the food under pressure. You can’t just open the lidduring the process to see how you are doing, after all, or rather, you can butwill probably only do it once.

My Alaska Correspondent takes a higher and safer road, and here is her version ofMac’s Balls:

Ingredients   1/2 cup uncooked long grain rice   1/2 cup water   1/3 cup chopped onion   1 teaspoon salt   1/2 teaspoon celery salt   1/8 teaspoon pepper   1/8 teaspoon garlic powder   1 pound ground beef   2 tablespoons canola oil   1 can (15 ounces) tomato sauce   1 cup water   2 tablespoons brown sugar   2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce

Directions In a bowl, combine the first seven ingredients. Add beef and mix well.shape into 1-1/2-in. balls. In a large skillet, brown meatballs in oil; drain.Combine tomato sauce, water, brown sugar and Worcestershire sauce; pour overmeatballs. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 1 hour. Yield: 4-6servings.

This is a guaranteed non-explosive dish. Really.

Copyright Mac, Vic and Alison 2012 www.vicsocotra.com

Man in Full

 

Mac had some back problems last week, but he came roaringback and was ready to hit the bar at Willow on Monday. The weather wasloosening up just like his sacroiliac- unseasonably warm in Arlington, and therising temperature featured the best of both worlds- the ladies shed theircoats to revealing advantage but kept their tall leather boots with the spikeheels.

“I was admiring the view on the way over,” I said. Mac hadbeat me to the bar by minutes, and he was sitting by Old Jim and Mary, whostopped on her way back from the office downtown.

“There was a cracked rack on the Metro,” she said. “Thingswere a mess all day.”

I nodded, grateful that I do not have to travel far to getto the office. I looked around for a pen, found that I had convenientlyforgotten mine, and borrowed one from Katya, whose dark-eyed beauty graced thebusiness end of the bar along with Tinkerbelle and Jasper and the lovelyLiz-with-an-S.  “So,” I said to Mac,grabbing a stack of napkins, “Where were we?”

The door to the bar swung open with a rush and in walkedPoint Loma with Jiffy, another Midway sailor in tow. I knew this was going toget complicated, particularly with both Johns, with and without H’s, and TheLovely Bea.

Mac is a babe magnet, for sure, and he was in fine fettleand thorughy enjoying the first of his two Race 5 India Pale Ales. He clearedhis throat and said, “I don’t know. What do you want to talk about.”

“Well, the big news is about Hawaii, and where we shouldstay if we go for the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Midway thissummer.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “The Hale Koa is all the waydowntown, and the events are supposed to happen at Pearl Harbor.”

“I like the Rainbow Tower of the Hilton, too. That is wherethe Navy used to put us when they tented the houses to kill the monstercockroaches. The housing area at McGrew Point was built on landfill, and therewas no way to really eradicate the things. They just moved from house tohouse.”

“I was always in quarters at Makalapa, on the rim of thecrater. It was nice to walk to work.”

“I bet. Kimo is out there now, in your old job as the FleetIntelligence Officer. It will be good to see him again back in his element. AndAdmiral Paul up at Camp Smith. This will be fun if we can pull it off.”

“We will see,” said Mac. “Paul was leaving on officialtravel to Thailand, I think.”

“Should be time for COBRA GOLD,” I said, thinking of thebest joint naval exercise in the world, since it normally came with a four-dayport visit in Pattaya Beach. Colonel Ike was further down the bar, huddled withJake. I pointed at him, saying “Ike just got back from Cambodia. I have alwayswanted to go there.” Katya topped up my white wine. “And Laos, of course. Damn,there is a lot to see.”

Mac smiled. “I was one of the last Americans on the Plain ofJars,” he said. “That was the trip with Lt Gen Bennet when I was Chief of Staffat DIA. We were visiting the Ambassador, G. McMurtrie Godley, which made things confusing since wewere both known as “Mac.” Everyone else knew him as “The FieldMarshall,” since he was involved in everything going on in the country,political or military.”

“So, you were there just ahead of the Pathet Laoguerrillas?”

Mac nodded. “It seemed like a good idea to see the placewhile we could.”

“And now we can again,” I said. “I sort of feel like justheading west from Hawaii this summer.”

Mac took a sip of beer. “I think I have been to SE Asia forthe last time,” he said. “That was the same trip we saw Admiral Rex in Saigon,and had dinner with him and Admiral Bud Zumwalt.”

I picked up my pen. “Wait,” I said, scribbling. “That isimpossible. He was not Zumwalt’s Intelligence Officer. I have talked to the guythat relieved him the year before. Rex was back here, working collectionsissues.”

“That may well be, but when General Bennett and I walkedinto Zumwalt’s quarters, he was there, big as life. I sat between him and Bud.”   I screwed up my brow in puzzlement. “If he was there, and Ibelieve you, Sir, that means something had caused him to be sent temporary dutyfrom Washington, and it must have been something big that he did not mention toyou.”

“Like the case of the missing Jack Graf,” said Mac. “But wehave been down this rabbit hole before.”

“Jack’s loss was a major crusade for Rex in his later years.I learned a lot helping to research the available evidence on his POW-Missingin Action status. A lot of the Naval Intelligence guys obviously followed thecase pretty closely, and they came close to rescuing him at least once, withthe camp where they held him showing signs they had only left hours before.”   “Torture can make anyone talk,” I said. “I heard the SEALseven found some of the Viet Cong interrogator’s notes.”

Mac nodded thoughtfully. “That is why the whole shot-while-trying-to-escapeand Jack’s body being buried in a place where the river washed it away is aninteresting story.”

“Yeah. When I found out that Jack had been to the KodakSchool to learn about how they were going to do electro-optical imagery fromearth orbit before he went back to Vietnam I was stunned. They never let peoplewith those clearances get far out of Saigon for fear they would be captured andcompromise the biggest secret in the Intelligence Community. And then Jackparachutes down right into the middle of them after he got shot down.”

“Do you think Rex was in Saigon to do a damage assessment onhis loss?” asked Mac.     “I don’t know, and if Jack was traded to the Soviets, wehave lost our window of opportunity to find out from the KGB files.”

“I don’t suppose we will ever know the answer, but to get atechnician who knew how the spy satellites really worked would have been wortha lot to the Russians.”   Mac shrugged. “Case closed, as far as the POW-MIA folks areconcerned. But it would explain why Rex was there. The Navy would have beenembarrassed at the screw-up that put Jack in a place where he could becaptured.”   Then we drifted away from mystery, and talked about otherones, cancer being one of them, according to my notes, and then about Mac’s topten recipes.   “Eggplant Parmesan, hands down,” he aid. “I did all thecooking for the last few years that Billie was still living at home. I gotpretty good at it. The stuff they serve at The Madison is abysmal. They don’thave a clue.”

I scribbled frantically. “I need the recipe,” I said. “Iwould like to try it. What else did you have in the rotation?”

“Chili con carne,” he said. “I have a recipe I inventedmyself. Spaghetti, apple crisp as a dessert.”   “No pear pies, like the ones from the C-rations on Guam.”

“No, definitely not. I don’t think I have had a pear of anykind since the War. And tenderloins. I would get the big ones form theCommissary- I would toss one in the over at 400 degrees for an hour, then turnit off an let it rest for an hour. Couldn’t miss. Perfect every time.”

“That sounds delicious,” I said.

“The kids liked a thing we called ‘Porcupine Balls.”   “That doesn’t sound very appetizing,” I said.

“Actually quite tasty. We used a pressure cooker. Dangerousthings, and you had to watch them closely. I would take hamburger and shapethem into meatballs mixed with regular white rice. When they cooked underpressure- I don’t recall how long, but not too long- the rice stuck out likethe quills on a porcupine.”

I wrote it down. There were several other conversations inprogress. Point Loma was talking about Ops Officers he had known on Midway, andMary was saying why Bob Ryan the weatherman had changed stations, and why hegot eased out of his old job at Channel 7.

The threads were all interesting, and I decided to stopwriting and concentrate on the wine. Mac smiled. “Good, now that you are notwriting things down, I have a story for you that you can’t tell.”

I put down my pen. “I am all ears,” I said.

It was an interesting story, and it is too bad I can’t tellyou. But I promised. Life is interesting, you know? And like the Jack Graf story,it doesn’t always make a lot of sense.   “What did Shakespeare say about life?” I asked Mac.

He smiled broadly. “A tale full of sound and fury,” he said.

I gestured at my notes. “And told by an idiot,” I said. “Whowould be me.”

Copyright 2012
Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com