http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbNl3J8HXw4

Last December, Nintendo celebrated the 25th anniversary of Super Mario Bros. with the release of a red Wii, red DSi XL and Mario All Stars for the Wii. Soon after this I imagined a Fender La Cabronita style guitar dyed completely red in honor of the plumber’s silver celebration. I like the simplicity of the La Cabronita design and I think it makes a fine high-gain single humbucker monstrosity.

Many months later… Behold, The La Fontanero Super!

" La Fontanero Super "

The guitar boasts an Allparts Tele style neck, Wilkinson Vintage Tuners, some cheap (but very decent) top-loading bridge and one of the lightest Swamp Ash guitar bodies I’ve ever come across.  I used a tele body I already had from Plaid Sabbath Guitar Works to trace the shape and then I cut it out rough with a jigsaw. In fact, I had originally contacted Plaid Sabbath about a tele body for this project, but the mahogany one he sent me was so nice, the grain was so spectacular I just couldn’t cover it up with red dye. After I cut the shape I used a cheapy Harbor Freight oscillating spindle sander to hone down the coarse edges of the body. The resulting body was light as a feather and the finished guitar weighs 6.2 pounds.

After routing the pickup cavities I sanded it to 320 grit and then “whiskered” the wood several times with a damp rag. Each time I did this it raised the wood grain a bit and I lightly sanded back the “burs” or fuzzy wood fibers. I then used a combination of powdered transfast dyes (Cardinal Red, Scarlet Red) mixed in distilled water to achieve a sort of “blood red.” Once the body and neck were dyed accordingly I finished it with Tru Oil, applying it several times using small pieces of t-shirt, carefully spreading it in one thin layer at a time. I must have applied the Tru Oil 20 times or more on the body, waiting about three hours between coats. Only 4-5 coats on the neck.

I tried something a little bit odd and it worked, a post on the Guitar Reranch gave me an idea to mix 40% mineral spirits (dyed with transfast) to 60% Tru Oil. This works with oil based dyes but I tried water based and it helped me dye the guitar a rather even red color. If I used this mixture alone it would not have looked super red, the dye darkened in the Tru Oil quite a bit, but it worked very well to deepen the overall red color and to cover some of the hard to reach pores in the grain that didn’t take the water based dye too easily. I did this on the body only, you can see it is a darker red than the neck, but not by a whole lot. It certainly takes a lot of Tru Oil to fill the grain pores of Swamp Ash especially when that ash is so light and dry, it just soaks up the first few coats. I applied three coats of normal Tru Oil to one coat of the dyed oil, sanding back lightly every three coats or so. I probably repeated this six times. Many people use #0000 steel wool to effectively sand the Tru Oil but I don’t like steel wool, all those steel fibers are like little metal eyelashes flitting all over the place; using compressed air to get rid of them ( mostly) is too much for me! I just used 600 grit sandpaper between every so many coats of Tru Oil and it worked for me.

I routed the pickguard from clear acrylic (diy pine template) and I placed a metallic print of the 25th Mario Anniversary logo underneath it. The lone volume knob has a push/pull pot rigged with an Arlo West/Woodman cocked wah mod (thanks Deaf Eddie for the wiring help!)

I must say the red neck with black tuners and dots looks quite evil. It reminds me of that horny guy from the movie Legend — no, not Tom Cruise.

I photoshopped the Nintendo DSi XL 25th Anniversary logo and had these printed as waterslide decals (thanks Geocha!) I put these on and sprayed them twice with the aerosol can version of Tru Oil first (noticed wiping Tru Oil directly over them would ruin them) let them dry overnight and then wiped on a few more coats of regular Tru Oil.

DSi-Like

Oh, the pickups? Oh, I figured you’d just kind of “know.” I mean, what else? What could possibly scream Mario better than a red Bare Knuckle Aftermath? That’s right, the super plumber employs tight, devastating and harmonically rich distortions on a level hitherto never before seen–or perhaps even heard!

Truly the coolest thing about this guitar is the way it plays and sounds. I own a couple Agiles (3100, 828) plus a nice Carvin DC727 and this La Fontanero Super is my finest guitar. Some claim that strings on a top-loading bridge are slightly easier to bend, slinkier –I find this to be true.

Once I have a nice method of recording, hopefully next year, I will post clips and even an EP in the future where I will outline which guitars and pickups were used.

Applying the waterslide decals.

Freshly applied.

The "Keeler" Custom Shop.

Mario loves metal...

Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown 8pm EST

Beavis and Butt-Head 10pm EST

I did start a pumpkin earlier this year but the massive amount of rain f’d it all up. Wasn’t nearly as big as the one last year.

In other incredibly important news, Reese’s steps up to the plate and reinstates their incredible purple, black, orange yellow and all around Halloween-y Reese’s Pumpkin packaging. The plain fall-ish packaging last year sucked balls and I was downright insulted.

Long ago in days of old when magic filled the air I sought to create the perfect chocolate chip cookie.

It was not flat with crispy brown edges, it was not high and dry. No, it had just the right lift, it was moist, chewy and loaded with chocolate chunks.

I bent all of my will on this cookie, much like the Dark Lord bent all his will on the creation of the One Ring.

“What better?” I thought, “What better than a rich, filthy, buttery vanilla-laden cookie loaded with chocolate chunks? Hot and fresh from the oven no less?”

“Whenever I wanted?”

I raised a pointed finger in the air and proclaimed the endeavor right and true and righteous.

I endeavored to summon the kind of chocolate chip cookie I love, I wanted the power to summon it on command.

To me, the perfect chocolate chip cookie is chewy on the inside, crisp on the outside ( but not too crispy ), it has good lift, heft and destroys every taste bud in its path with the right combination of warm melty sugar, vanilla, chocolate, salt and flour… and exceedingly nutritious buttery goodness.

Ingredients:
• 2 1/4 cups flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened**
• 3/4 cups granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup light brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 large egg
• 1 package semi-sweet chocolate chunks (I usually use 3/4 the bag when its chunks) – Or – about 1 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips and 1 cup of white chocolate chips (walnuts, pecans, almonds, M&M’s or unsalted macadamia nuts optional)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

2. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into a medium bowl and set aside. Measure perfectly, this is the key to consistent quality.

3. Place the softened butter, granulated sugar, and light brown sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer and cream the ingredients on high speed. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula.

4. Add the vanilla and egg and mix on medium speed.

5. Add the flour mixture and mix on low speed until the creamed batter just melds together with the flour mixture.  Over-mixing here will likely flatten the cookies and I’m not a fan of flat chocolate chip cookies. I mix just until the batter is well… mixed, like just a few seconds maybe 15 or so, I even leave it so there is some unmixed flour.

6. Now, using a large spoon or plastic spatula, fold in the chocolate chips and any other ingredients like nuts or M&M’s. Mixing in the chips and such by hand won’t damage or break them up, and by mixing them into the dough now you’ll make up for not mixing the dough quite enough in the last step. Once again, just mix or fold the chips only until they disperse throughout the dough.

Also, some people say you should always melt the butter completely. I’m not one of those people and I’m not quite sure why. Well, on second thought, I might melt the butter for an oatmeal cookie, it saturates the oatmeal and breaks it down a little, but for regular chocolate chip cookies I like to leave the butter out at room temperature or nuke it on power level 40 for less than a minute to soften it. Softened butter in the dough makes it nice and light and fluffy and great for eating spoonfuls of it. The dough stands up better on the cookie sheet too, I like a cookie with good lift and its my belief that the nice fluffy dough eliminates the need for refrigerating the dough for an hour so it stiffens up a bit before it hits the oven.

Bigguns'

7. I scoop the dough into balls with a tablespoon and place them on the baking sheet. One of these days I will get a cookie scoop thing. For now, I don’t mind slight imperfection in the size department. I have a convection oven but I don’t the convection setting for these. I find they come out better for me without it. Repeat with remaining dough, keeping the scoops about 2 inches apart. I shape them just a little bit into roundish 3/4″ thick cylinders. Using your fingers or the back of the spoon, press down on each ball of dough to slightly flatten. You should get about 9 cookies on each sheet if you go big, 12 if you go smaller. One key for me is parchment paper on an aluminum, non-sided baking sheet. Parchment paper rules and it rules hard over cookies, remember that–and never forget it. I suppose those fancy silpat things work too. This way the cookies come clean off the sheet, have perfect looking bottoms and there’s no mess. I re-use the paper for the rest of the batches as it shows little sign of wear and tear.

One last note for this step, I cover the remaining dough with plastic wrap so it stays fresh as can be. It may or may not serve as a shield from would be cookie dough attackers. How uncouth to paw at a perfectly saran wrapped bowl of cookie dough, is what I would say.

8. Bake until golden brown in the lower/middle rack of the oven, for me that is like 12 to 13 minutes for smaller 12 to a sheet cookies and perhaps 14-15 minutes if you go much bigger. Around 11 minutes they should begin to crack and form crevices on the tops. Inside they won’t look done, but they are likely very close since they still cook a bit as they cool. If you truly brown them, which is likely after 15 mins or so in my oven, you’ll end up with hard crunchy cookies after they cool. I’m not a fan of those. I like somewhat firm on the outside and somewhat soft and tender on the inside. Perfect. If I forget to time them I can tell if they’re done by the cracking on top and the slight golden brown on the edges while remaining fairly white-ish in the middle. After you take them out they must cool off for 5 minutes on the pan unless you like hot, drippy ooze.

9. Transfer the cookies with a spatula to wire racks  to cool.

A couple notes:

The climate where you live can have an effect on the cookies and the ingredients can vary–even flour and sugars vary in their moisture content or what not. I once bought some really dry flour that may have been stored in Iraq. This particular recipe works for me in my oven, it may take a little altering depending on your oven. I actually use one stick and one stick minus a tablespoon of butter for regular chocolate chip cookies–it seems to improve that lift I’m after. You can add a half cup of cocoa powder to this recipe, just add it to the flour mixture to create chocolate chocolate chip cookies. If I add the cocoa, I then use the full two sticks of butter. I once saw a recipe with a teaspoon of baking powder in it so I gave it a try, now I use 1/2 teaspoon. The full teaspoon increases the lift marginally and I find it adds too many air bubbles which gives the poor, unsuspecting cookie goer a false impression.

After making these for years I can tell if they are ” just right ” by taking a teaspoon gob of the finished dough (making sure to swipe up a couple chocolate chunks) and tasting it. I taste for the right ratio of flour to sugar, and subtle hints of salt and vanilla. Actually, it’s just an excuse to grab hunks of the raw dough and eat it. You made it so you’re entitled to it.

It’s clear I haven’t updated in a while. Been hardly working, but anyways the pumpkin that grew very big under the corn out back in “perfect” shadowed conditions ended up 85 pounds, not bad for not even trying to grow a big pumpkin. Next year I will start one earlier to see if I can’t break the current weight record of 85 pounds. Bunger dog inspects:

I certainly can’t take any credit for this recipe: Jamie’s Minestrone Recipe.

I believe this recipe is kickass though, I’ve already made it three times since only recently acquiring it. A few weeks ago I had some canned Minestrone soup at a friends house and realized it’s a taste I’ve been missing for some time. In fact, every time I’ve had that style of soup I’ve liked it, but I forgot all about Minestrone soup for many years until now. I looked at the ingredients on the can and I was like damn dude that’s a ton of salt. As is the case with many other things, I figured you can make it yourself and you can probably make it better. I looked up this Allrecipes.com page and tried it out, in the case of a few recipes I’ll post from time to time, even though they originate from somewhere else sometimes it’s good to see someone actually make them and provide the results.

I did everything on the recipe list but I changed a few things:

• Summer Squash instead of Zucchini
• 2 Cans of 33% less sodium chicken broth
• 2 Cans of red kidney beans
• Half a box of frozen spinach
• More like 2 cups of seashell pasta and I chucked them right in the simmering pot towards the end
• 1 Can of tomato puree, a few fresh tomatoes peeled (another time I used one can of tomato puree and one can of chopped tomatoes)
• Fresh green beans

Every time I’ve made this soup I’m surprised at just how good it is. Loaded with vegetables and the broth tastes so rich like a beef stew without the beef. I could see kids eating this with some bread and butter. I would have eaten this as a kid and I hated vegetables when I was very young. Use fresh or frozen vegetables in place of canned ones–the salt will start to add up if you use a lot of canned veggies.

Just after adding the tomatoes...

I followed the simple instructions to a T, although each time I ended up adding some more water. Otherwise it turns into vegetable chili, which is OK, but I like a lot of the dark broth in this soup. If possible, don’t skimp on the kidney beans or the spinach, besides tasting good in this soup they help give the broth a nice dark color. This soup especially good with bread. Once you have all the ingredients ready, it takes about a half hour to cut everything up and another hour to cook.

Good Stuff

I was surprised to find this guy just hanging out in the corn today:

Looked like a mini stone gargoyle or something at first glance.

Just a reminder, it’s tradition you know.

Since 1966.