Cheap Bastid's Tomato Crop

Well, like I mentioned a while ago, I put 4 pots of tomato plants out on my balcony a couple of months ago. And I’ve been salivating at the idea of fresh, deep red, juicy Romas and grape tomatoes.


I don't have much of a green thumb. I tend to “love” the plants too much, puttzing around and over-watering. I guess that’s why the lower leaves turned yellow and dropped off. I was giving them an inch of water about once a week. Of course, here in SoCal we don’t get an inch of rain between Easter and Thanksgiving so that was a bit much. I quit watering them for a week and they perked up. And now, I’m giving them sips every 3 days or so and I added some nitrogen fertilizer. They seem to be doing better.

So, the first tomato turned a gorgeous deep red and had just the right firmness hinting at the acidy-sweet deliciousness inside. I lovingly harvested it and took it inside to the kitchen, rinsed it off in a bath of cool refreshing water and placed it on my cutting board.


Taking out my sharpest knife, I cut it into perfect, round, succulent slices watching as each one separated and leaned against its neighbor.


Next I prepped some lettuce for a green salad with tomatoes. Then I sliced bread, cheese and salami for the perfect sandwich.

Assembly completed, I paused to admire the simplicity of my gastronomic handiwork. A perfect sandwich accompanied by a perfect salad. Flavors balanced. A bit of bread and cheese and meat complimented by the earthy goodness of the freshly harvested fruit of my gardening.

And, now for the reality of my tomatoey lunch:





Sometimes when you eat what you harvest, it’s not a very big meal. But homegrown, freshly harvested tomatoes are always the best. And there’s a whole bunch more just about ready to pick, this time enough for a “real” salad and sandwich.

Hopefully, I gotcha and you enjoyed this little bit of fun.

WOW! A Busy Few Weeks for Cheap Bastid

Hey folks, it’s been a busy few weeks for the Cheap Bastid. All of a sudden my e-mail has been popping and my phone has been ringing. I feel like a rock star. Maybe there’s some interest out there in Cheap Bastid’s kind of cooking on a budget.

Here’s what’s been happening in my world:

First, I got a call from Bravo. They wanted to have me as a guest host and judge right there alongside Padma Lakshmi on Top Chef this next season. (Wouldn’t it be cool to get them to do an Elimination Challenge when the chefs have to go to the 99 Cent Only store and spend no more than $10 on a meal for a family of four). It’ll be the first episode and I get to inspect tattoos for family content and I’ll be translating Fabio’s English to English. “This is Top Chef not Top Puzzy!” Check out the publicity shot:


Then, I got a call from Gordon Ramsey from “Hell’s Kitchen”. He wants me to pinch hit for him whenever he goes into a meltdown. I’ll be the designated screamer and cusser so that Gordon can be “kinder and gentler” and show his “Alan Alda” side. So, I’ve been rehearsing screaming obscenities but substituting the word “bleep” for the bad words. Apparently that’s cheaper than having to pay a sound editor to insert all the bleeps electronically.


Damn, then Food Network called and wanted me on Iron Chef. Not as a challenger but as one of the Iron Chefs. It seems like Bobby Flay got the crap kicked out of him after he actually won a “Throwdown” and was going to be out of action for a few weeks. They didn’t necessarily want me to cook—just to stand around with my arms folded looking menacing.


And then I got invited to do a screentest where I would actually get to cook. It was for a pilot of a new sit-com that’s a take-off on Julie and Julia (now I thought they wanted to make it Julia and Jules but I was mistaken). I didn’t get the part because in the publicity “stills” I was considered to be too unattractive. Man, I don’t know what was wrong with those folks.

After that though, things got just a bit better. You know that Pres. Obama and Michelle have a garden at the White House, right? I got invited to do a bit of guest gardening with Michelle. That’s OK, but what they really wanted me to do was help rake and shovel the composted manure into the topsoil. They told me I was an acknowledged expert at shoveling that kind of shit. I guess they got the manure from the Republican caucus in the Senate.


And finally, I got selected to have my picture on the cover of “Food and Wine” magazine’s “Best New Chefs and Their Easiest Recipes” issue. I just wish that they had let me cook first because as soon as they saw my “Weiners Wellington” recipe they kicked me out but not before I swiped a “galley” cover of the original photo.

So, yeah it’s been a busy few weeks for Cheap Bastid. That’s why I keep repeating the mantra:

Eat Good. Eat Cheap. Be Grateful!

And I’m grateful that it’s April Fools Day!

...and a huge thank you to Mrs. CB for some terrific photo editing!

"Liveblogging" My Favorite TV Show--"The Hunt for Big Fish"

Wow! I’m excited. It’s time for my favorite TV drama. It’s full of action.

I’m getting ready to settle in right now coffee mug in one hand, remote control in the other. I’m flipping the channel to 60 and cozying my butt down into the couch cushions in anticipation. It’s Saturday morning and I don’t have to work today so I can really enjoy my show. At the first commercial I’ll get a bowl of Cheerios to enjoy while I finish watching.
OK, here it comes. The commercial is about over. It’s for Jack Link’s Jerky, a prime sponsor. I wonder what the show is about today.

Yes! It’s Larry Dahlberg. Bald, short, ropy-muscled arms. Unassuming but he always succeeds in his “Hunt For Big Fish” right here on Versus.

What’s he doing? Oh yeah, he’s standing on the bow of the boat with a huge baitcasting rod. Obviously he’s going after something hefty. What? He’s in Brazil along a tributary of the Amazon. He’s going after really aggressive and huge Amazon River catfish. They eat piranha. He’s got a live piranha hooked through it’s toothy lip and flopping around. He tosses the bait out, reel spinning and throwing a cascade of droplets into the air. You hear the “zing” as the line goes out to plop a good 50 yards away in an eddy.


He’s explaining what he’s doing. “It’s going to be a little bit harder to catch these big fish today. The river level is way up meaning that the holes where these big cats usually hide out have more water running through them. So we’re just going to have to wait and see what happens.”

We wait. Larry talks about how he rigged his bait. Then you hear a click. Kind of reminds you of the scene in Jaws where the line makes a single ominous “click” and Robert Shaw suddenly gets a mad glint in his eye. My hand stops halfway to my mouth, milk from my spoonful of Cheerios dripping plop, plop, plop back into the bowl.

Larry scrambles to remove the rod from its holder stubbing his toe on his tackle box. He lifts the rod and his ropy arm muscles come to life as he feels for the fish. He hushes his voice as if the fish can hear him and says “He’s playing with it first. Let’s let him really get it in his mouth,” as he free spools line from the reel. Larry locks the drag down, takes hold of the rod above the reel, drops the tip to his waist level and then, POW! POW! POW! He sets the hook hard 3 times each time jerking the rod up about 2 feet.

The tip starts sawing back and forth as the lunker lunges from side to side in its desperate tug of war with the foreign hunk of steel attached to heavy mono line jabbing him through his lip.

The fight is on. Man versus fish. Who’s going to win? Larry’s fights tend to be short. He’s after big fi
sh and he uses big tackle. He’s tremendously skilled and experienced. He shifts the rod from side to side keeping up with the struggling fish’s furious frenzy. Suddenly, we can see the gargantuan Amazon River catfish. It’s longer than Larry is tall. It’s a behemoth. Larry is breathing hard. He whispers hoarsely, “This is a monster. It’s got to go close to 300 pounds! Let’s land him and take a look.”


Larry and the guide struggle to get hands on the fish. They grunt as they heave the monster aboard. The camera zooms to get a close up of the lunker. Larry doesn’t gloat or exclaim or shout when he catches a fish. It’s as though he is far more respectful of the creature which to him is both a challenge and a science project to discover more about these animals and how they’ve managed to grow so large. The monster is gently released back into the river to continue to grow. Larry offers his bag of Jack Link’s jerky to the native guide who plops a handful in his mouth and proceeds to merrily gum it. The jerky is always present as a sponsor’s prop reminding us of the need to pay the bills.

More commercials. And then it’s time for this week’s show to end with a promise of more action in another exotic location next week as he goes on his next “Hunt for Big Fish”.


Wow! Maybe next week I’ll liveblog my other favorite show, “Antiques Roadshow” or “Ask This Old House”. This could be a whole new trend and, at least to my way of thinking, more enjoyable than recaps of “Lost” or “American Idol”. But who knows, my mind conjures up all sorts of goofy stuff.

My apologies to Larry Dahlberg if it seems as though I were poking fun at him. I’m not. This is one of my favorite fishing shows. He’s far more enjoyable than most of the other guys like Babe Winkelman or Bill Dance or Roland Martin who are little more than commercial shills for their sponsors and are tired caricatures of Gadabout Gaddis. And “hoooooooey boy!” he can sure catch him some fish.