ALS Story (NSFW)

A lifetime ago, when I was in the Air Force, I had to scramble to attend Airman Leadership School (ALS) because I was going to be deployed, and make Staff Sergeant (SSgt) "downrange". Now my career field keeps us well away from "regular" Air Force and we normally went to a specific Air Force base for ALS, but this small base on the other side of the country was able to do me a solid. Normally their capacity is just enough for the Airmen on base, but I was allowed to attend with five other Airmen as a six-week Temporary Duty (TDY). I was the first from my career field to attend this particular school and at the time most Airmen have no clue what I did, so fish-out-of-water is an appropriate analogy.

This One Time, at the Strip Club....

 

I recently shared this old story from back in my Air Force days and thought, for better or for worse, I should share here because, wel reasons.

Back when I had but one stripe to lose and was stationed at Ft Lewis someone discovered an ad in the paper for some rather busty bimbo making the rounds appearing at the local Deja Vue. The ad had little more than a headshot and the copy stating "THEY'RE HUGE!!!", which became our catch-phrase for the week.

Friday rolls around and since we're paying a buck or two to wear civvies it is decided that we should have a unit luncheon at Deja Vue (THEY'RE HUGE!!!) as they have a free lunch buffet. I'm one of the guys eating his shitty lunch just off of the stage and then "She" comes out. They were rather large and nice, but definitely not "huge" in the comical way some are today. She was damn fine though.

After reverse motorboating one of my brothers, and totally fucking up his glasses, she drags out this little kiddie pool and proceeds to strip and pour a pitcher or water slowly over her body. She's only wearing a lei and a smile. Good times. As part of her routine she flicks some water on some of us. I motion "bring it on" and she tosses some more water at me. Another hand motion and she just empties the pool back into the pitcher, pours it all over me (definitely not as hot as when she did it the 1st time). Then she kisses me on the cheek and gives me her lei.

I remember getting back to the shop and rolling out of someone else's car shouting out to the unit, "I GOT LEI'D!!!".....yeah, it ends up the unit had some VIPs, including some female officers, visiting the unit and it was quickly decided that my ass had to be hidden away for a spell.

Later that evening another brother, Mike, and I go back to the club....why not, my admission from lunch was still good. We see her evening show and Mikey pays for a picture with her, then we stay for some other strip-shows.

Now Mike had this one interesting....peculiarity(?) he had which was that he was convinced that beautiful women were always checking him out. While we're sitting in the middle of the room having a beer and watching this hot blonde strip he starts up (again). "Dude...she's totally checking me out." Sure Mike....sure. After a bit more of this I'm at least humoring him and no shit, it does look like she's paying him waaaaay too much attention. I remember thinking just how painful this attention is going to be for future me, especially when her set ends and holy f##k....she's coming to our table.....

.....Where she totally ignores Mike to talk with me! I got a couple free lap dances and an invitation for a private show, which I got for about half the going rate. Now I've never been so conceited to think anything other than I was her mark of choice for the moment and I'm sure I left the club with no money in my wallet, but to be able to put Mike in his place back then and to remind him almost 30 years later......well worth it!

Twofer Tuesday: Kimchi Grilled Cheese Sandwich and Chipotle Mayo

 

So now that I have my homemade Kimchi recipe down I've been enjoying it much more frequently than I had been before. I liked Kimchi, but the stuff I had been buying was downright ......effervescent? The brand I had bought (as recently just tossed) is actually a little carbonated because it was fermented so long.

Since I now had stuff I liked I decided I'd brush off my version of the best grilled cheese sandwich that I ever had, courtesy of a little grilled cheese shop in the Columbus OH, North Market that (IIRC) was called The Best of the Wurst.

I think there are other, more successful places with the same name, but if you're in Columbus and have the opportunity to go to the North Market.....hit this place up. I loved everything I've had there, but the Kimchi Grilled Cheese sandwich rocked my world, for more than one reason. It's great, obviously, but this sandwich introduced me to not just one knew flavor, but two. Because of this, consider this post a bit of a twofer.

The Kimchi Grilled Cheese Sandwich is pretty easy:

• Sourdough Bread
• Gruyère Cheese
• Chipotle Mayo
• Kimchi

Now the hard part for me is the cheese.....it's kind of pricey and usually only available in a small wedge, but I lucked out and found one market in town that had it not only at a decent price, but available sliced as thick as you like at the deli.

Lay down your bread, lay down some Chipotle Mayo....what, you don't have Chipotle Mayo? That's the twofer and the best DIY condiment you NEED to be making, so I'll loop around to making that at the end of this post. Anyway, Sourdough Bread & Chipotle Mayo go on first, followed by sliced Gruyère Cheese. Put those identical halves together with a little Kimchi in the middle and grill. I grill mine for about 6 minutes dry (i.e. no butter) on my George Forman grill.

Soooooo good.

OK, so this fancy Chipotle Mayo is the best stuff, but also the easiest thing to make. All you need to do is take one of those little cans of Chipotle in Adobo Sauce and toss it in your blender. Blend until smooth and add a little (like start off with a 1/2 tsp to a couple cups) to some mayo. The color should be a pinkish-orange, but go by taste. I make a small jar of Chipotle Mayo and keep it in the fridge and usually I end up having to throw out the majority of the blended Chipotle in Adobo Sauce because so little goes in the mayo.

I do consider Chipotle Mayo to be actual awesomesauce.

Budae Jjigae

 

So I got my second batch of Kimchi made and I loved how it came out. Just perfect for my needs.....not too spicy or overly fermented. The stuff I usually buy is just..OK, but it is quite fermented so it has a bit of a "fizz" to it.

Anyway, now I need to eat the Kimchi. Obviously I enjoy it as-is, but it also can serve as an ingredient in other dishes, one of which is Budae Jjigae, or Korean Army Stew. The link is to the base recipe I followed, and the lead-in graphic is pretty much what I actually used. Cool thing is you don't need to follow either recipe perfectly....

The proteins

I am not even boasting when I say that this dish came out beautifully. I was beyond thrilled how this tasted.....it was better than the last time I had it in Korea at a restaurant. Granted I might be biased, but since I bought the ingredients I was able to tweak things to my personal liking, so it should have been better. Things like choosing all-beef hotdogs and upping the amount of my Kimchi.

Added mushrooms

With my (technically old) job I got to go to Korea for two weeks. The company I worked for was kind of a PITA when it came to travelling because they seemed to not want us to use the company credit card to pay for meals, even though it literally was the reason we were issued one. Their rules were almost draconian and a buddy & I went to this one Korean restaurant for dinner where we had a version of Budae Jjgae. The dinner for two of us was pretty much the price of dinner for one everywhere else, but I was paying for dinner with my company card and we knew the company would loose their shit that I was paying for two....that's just how they rolled.

Kimchi and Sauce

When the receipt came it was completely in Korean! This wasn't actually common on this trip as many receipts were either dual-language or in English. We both got way too much of a laugh thinking about how pissed the ladies processing our travel vouchers were going to be with South Korean Won and Hangul.

Now I would share the recipe here (outside of the recipe card I already did), but since I got it from another site, you should go there instead. Cool thing is on that site you can print out a recipe card and change the serving sizes easily. I would just reiterate that you can be a bit fast & loose on this as you like....it should still be good.

Finished Dish

Pickled Red Onions

 

Listen....I know I've been on this food kick, more like a pickle kick, lately. I'm rounding the turn to the end goal here and to be honest all this stuff has been spread out over nearly three months....it's just that I have been shitty about documenting it all, which is partly why I've been blogging in the first place.

Not so much "something to do" as "where can I find my notes to do this again?" If someone else gleans some good details from here, so be it....a twofer.

Now I may have started with the pickled veggies as whole pickles, but the next thing I tried my hand at were some simple pickled red onions. This was so easy to do and a lot of bang-for-your-buck. These make a great condiment you can put on just about anything. I did two batches and gave a buddy one and he happily reports they go great on his morning eggs.

Now I didn't just make this up out of thin air, but stumbled across it on YouTube, specifically Ethan Chlebowski's channel. He's not my favorite YouTuber.......I haven't really thought about why or why not, but I suspect that a lot of his content just doesn't hit home with me (sorry Ethan....keep up the good work though!), but his video on Pickled Onions....is some good content.

Easy to follow along and right off the bat he pitches why you should have pickled onions in your fridge....and I have to agree.

Pickled Red Onions

• Red Onions
• Water
• Vinegar
• Salt

Thinly slice the red onion and pack into jar. Boil equal amounts water and vinegar and add a good pinch of salt. Bring liquid to boil and add to onions. Seal jar and place in fridge.

I used one of those fancy-schmancy flip-top jars, IIRC a liter jar, and one bag of four red onions filled it damned near perfectly. I found letting the jar cool down to room temp before placing in the fridge helped the onions "pink up" much faster. I tend to let my pickles stay at room temp for a couple days before refrigerating, but that's how I roll.