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Tuesday, March 04, 2003

I. Whose hand is upon the rudder? Hope it ain't William Bligh, the much-celebrated Captain Bligh..Read 'em and weep. Nice memorial though. 9:09:01 PM    comment []

II. Still Crazy, After All These Years (Diplomatic Pouch Edition). The U.S. is sending 24 bombers to Guam to send a message to North Korea not to take advantage of a possible war with Iraq, 8:53:04 PM    comment []

III. Okay, I enjoy being the number 1 non-sponsored website on a Sympatico.ca search on "sausage making at home while drunk." You like me, you really like me. Eat your heart out, Google. 8:04:41 PM    comment []

IV. Here is a recipe for Chai Kurdi, sweet hot Kurdish tea. Here is another, from Timothy Noah. 7:55:18 PM    comment []

Calorific Value ...is funnyFunny! What does this sticker mean, the one that sticker girl put on my Kashmiri mix? What does this mean, what does it mean? It adds up to 98.10% until that pesty calorific value rears its ugly snack food head, then what? Ingredients: Moong Dal, Potato, Gram Flour, Cashew Nut, Musk Melon Seed, Spinach, Groundnut Oil (Peanut Oil), Edible Salt, Citric Acid and Spices in Mild Flavor. I know this much: It hits you immediately with the aroma and flavor of curry, nice snack crunch, a hint of turmeric but no stains on the fingers, then it leaves you with the warm soul kiss of capsaicin.  Liz says this stuff would be good sprinkled on salad. On a related note, I got this email today: M will send her version of broiled catfish; one of my fovorrite meals. She used crushed hot tabasco cheezit crackers to coat the beast then broils it, rather than panko, but your photo looks very similiar to the result.  We try and have it at least weekly.   That got me thinking what it might be like to crush this delicously seasoned, but probably 39.10% fat snack mixture, and use it for breading. I think it would be good.. 6:43:47 PM    comment []

Before I let my inner T-chur grade my own work, let me explain something. This morning, I really wanted to get the Beef & Guinness Pie recipe posted before leaving for work. Scanning the picture was easy. To save a little time, I went for OCR on the recipe itself. The ingredients seemed to go okay, but I had to type the instructions in manually. Then I pasted it into Word and made all the recommended changes, with all due thought.  It was late. I had a lot of loose ends at work to either trim or tie together. All the required tasks were in good shape by the time I read this horrifying ingredient: Salt and freshly ground black leper, For some reason, I laughed out loud and felt no urgency to fix it. This one, a hasty addendum, I'll fix in just a minute: you know, it's funnyFunny, I just happen to have a bunch of mushrooms growing over in the corner... Bad capitalization and "funnyFunny" is not good. It is not funny. "Freshly ground black leper" is funny, maybe even funnyFunny, I dunno, if you can't find one just subsitute black pepper.   5:45:23 PM    comment []

5:17:27 PM    comment []

Some Local News: Anti-war protesters will dare to bare By Susan Broili, The Herald-Sun March 3, 2003 6:44 pm CARRBORO -- Some local war protesters plan to bare all today to bring attention to their cause. The protesters will go au naturel for their Naked People for Peace procession from 5 to 6 p.m. today in Chapel Hill, according to a news release from the group. The location of the route will be disclosed at 4 p.m., according to the release. But if the protesters doff their clothes for whatever reason, they risk arrest, said a Chapel Hill police spokeswoman. People who go naked in the procession could be charged with indecent exposure, Chapel Hill police spokeswoman Jane Cousins said Monday. Under state law, the charge of indecent exposure can be lodged if a person exposes his or her private parts, defined as genitalia, to a member of the opposite sex, she said. Being on private property doesn’t necessarily protect participants from being charged with the misdemeanor, Cousins said. "If they are on private property but still in public view, then they could be charged with indecent exposure," she said. Nineteen members of the local group apparently already disrobed for peace this past weekend. According to the group’s news release, the 19 gathered Saturday afternoon on the lawn of a private residence in Carrboro, disrobed and used their naked bodies to spell out "END WAR!" They used a circle of rocks and what appeared to be a log for the exclamation mark. Someone took a photograph of the "END WAR!" message. From the photo on the release, which was sent to local media outlets, it was not clear, because of various poses, whether all the participants were women. Local participants could not be reached for comment Monday, but the release said that "collectively the group shared a willingness to bare their bodies for peace in an effort to draw more attention to the anti-war movement and to show that we are part of the same human family." The members of the group met had met to "brainstorm and plan creative actions against the prospective war in Iraq." They apparently decided on the birthday suit approach and went into action immediately. The group had been inspired by the international movement of "Baring Witness" against war and had responded to a call put out by the statewide organization, Naked People for Peace NC. "War is the antithesis of all life," said one group member, quoted in the release. "Our bare human bodies are potent symbols of life...." The "Baring Witness" Web site -- baringwitness.com -- features a number of photos of both naked and clothed men and women at "Baring Witness" events in this country and abroad. The photos included one of 30 naked women lying in snow on Feb. 7 in New York’s Central Park, where they used their bodies to spell "NO BUSH" and then "NO WAR," according to the Web site. However, in a photo said to be taken in Antarctica, participants opted to keep their clothes on. The "Bare Witness" movement started on Nov. 12 when 45 nude women supposedly used their bodies to spell "PEACE" on a Marin County, Calif., beach, according to the Web site. "It struck a deep chord around the world. Our exposure of the vulnerable human flesh we all share has created a powerful statement against the naked aggression of our country’s policies," the Web site noted. URL for this article: http://www.herald-sun.com/orange/10-327088.html 9:00:20 AM    comment []

This Beef And Guinness Pie, from page 71 of the March 2003 issue of Saveur has generated a lot of comments. Whenever anyone looks through the magazine for the first, they show me this picture. One guy at work asked if I still had it in my computer bag, the day after I'd first carried it with me. I did. He wanted to show it to another friend. Funny, I just happen to have a bunch of mushrooms growing over in the corner... Beef and Guinness Pie   SERVES 6-8   This is a hearty Irish variation on steak and kidney pie. 3 tbsp, tomato paste 3½ cups beef stock 4 lbs. beef chuck, cut into 1" cubes 1½ lbs. white mushrooms cleaned and quartered 1 large yellow onion peeled and sliced 6 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped 2 tbsp. fresh thyme leaves, chopped 2 cups Guinness stout 1½ cup flour Salt and freshly ground black leper 1 lb. frozen puff pastry, thawed 1. Preheat oven a 325º. Put tomato paste in a large bowl, add stock until paste dissolves. Add beef, onions, mushrooms, onions, garlic, thyme and stout and stir well. Sprinkle flour over beef mixture, season to taste, and stir well. Transfer to a deep 10½ “ x 12 ½” set on a large baking sheet. Cover dish with foil. Bake, stirring occasionally, until beef is very tender, 3½ - 4 hours.   2. Beat egg and 1 tablespoon water together in a small bowl and set aside. Roll puff pastry out on a lightly floured surface to a ¼“ thickness, 2" wider than baking dish. Remove baking dish from oven and uncover. Drape pastry over dish and brush with egg wash. Return baking dish to oven and bake until pastry is puffed and deep golden brown, about 40 minutes. Garnish with spearmint sprigs, if you like. 6:05:20 AM    comment []

The second wave of mushrooms is nearly ready! 5:14:05 AM    comment []