Ghost Town

2012-02-12T14:37:00.000-05:00

Bourbon Banana Bread

by ANNA on JANUARY 30, 2012 · 11 COMMENTS

There’s no shame in having a little bourbon for breakfast, right?

At least in this case, where it’s baked into banana bread. Then again, you may prefer this bread for a late afternoon snack with coffee or even dessert because it’s sweet, and you can really taste the bourbon. It’s so strong I’m not sure you should drive after eating it. But seriously, I do recommend this recipe.

Bourbon Banana Bread

1 1/2 cups (6.8 ounces) all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup extra light olive oil or vegetable oil
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 large egg plus 2 tablespoons lightly beaten egg
1 1/2 very large or 2 small bananas, mashed
1/2 cup bourbon whisky
3 tablespoons water

Preheat the oven to 350 F and spray a 9×5 inch or slightly smaller loaf pan with flour-added cooking spray.
Combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a bowl and stir well to mix.
In a mixing bowl, using an electric mixer, beat the oil, sugar and vanilla until well mixed. Add the egg and beat until light, then reduce mixer speed and beat in the mashed banana and bourbon. By hand, stir in the flour mixture and the water just until mixed. Pour the batter into the pan and bake for 45 minute. If you like, sprinkle nuts and chocolate chips down the center of the loaf before baking. Let cool for about 20 minutes, then carefully remove from the pan.

Make Scones for Your Honey on Valentine's Day

2012-02-10T19:55:00.003-05:00

Dried Cherry Scones- Valentine’s Breakfast

Dried Cherry Scones (Makes 13 3-inch Heart Scones)
2 1/2 Cups Flour
1/2 Cup Sugar
2 1/2 Teaspoons Baking Powder
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
6 Tablespoons Unsalted Butter, Chilled and Chopped
3/4 Cup Whole Milk
1/2 Cup Dried Cherries
1 Egg, Beaten, or 1 Tablespoon Heavy Cream*(See step 7)

1. Preheat oven to 400 F.

2. Whisk the first four ingredients together in a large bowl.

3. Add the butter to the flour mixture and mix with either your fingertips, a pastry blender, or two knives until it forms the texture of coarse meal.

4. Add the milk and cherries and mix gently until just incorporated (the dough may look a bit dry, but allow it sit for a few minutes and the flour will soak up all the milk).

5. Place dough on a lightly floured surface and gently press into a 1″ thick circle.

6. Cut out scones using a heart shaped cookie cutter.

7. Place scones on a parchment lined baking sheet and brush with beaten egg or heavy cream, if desired (this will give the scones a golden crust)*.

8. Bake in oven for 25 minutes.

9. Move immediately to a wire cooling rack and serve.

Exotic Animals Killed in Zanesville - October 2011

2012-02-10T19:52:00.001-05:00

The first link below is an Esquire magazine story about what happened at the wildlife facility owned and operated by Terry Thompson near Zanesville, Ohio last October. The Muskingum County Sheriff's Department confirmed that a total of 56 animals had escaped from the wildlife preserve. Law enforcement has killed one wolf, six black bears, two grizzly bears, nine male lions, eight lionesses, one baboon, one mountain lion and eighteen tigers.

http://www.esquire.com/features/zanesville-0312?click=pp

This second link is an interview with the author of the article.

http://brandonsneed.com/home/2012/2/7/chris-jones-of-esquire-on-his-zanesville-zoo-massacre-story.html

Of course, there are those who think Sarah Palin was involved, as the photo below indicates. Maybe she hunted them down from her helicopter.

Eggtastic Breakfast Sandwich

2012-02-10T19:30:00.000-05:00

This looks a heart attack getting ready to happen. I'll have to give it a try.

_________________________________________________

Natalie *

Natalie J. Forté is a busy lady. Armed with a degree in broadcast journalism, she has traveled the globe to cover some of the world’s most sought-after vacation spots and exotic destinations. She’s led local and international press junket interviews and lifestyle programming for major networks like ABC Family, and interviewed stars such as an Angelina Jolie, Natalie Portman and Liam Neeson. And now, as the charming, spunky host of America’s Best Bites, Natalie brings viewers a taste of some of the country’s most delicious dishes.

Natalie J. Forté

Jealous yet? Me too. But as much as I’d love to hate her, Natalie is just too darn likeable, especially since she has clued me in to her signature Eggtastic Breakfast Sandwich — a masterpiece marriage of eggs and cheese taken to a whole new level. The origins of the sandwich date back all the way to middle school in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where her mother would make Natalie a simple egg and cheese sandwich on potato bread every day before school. In her teenage years, Natalie’s love of the breakfast sandwich continued to grow, though she ditched the white carbs in favor of healthier whole grains, and began to eat on the run. “Every morning I’d hit the road in my little red Honda Civic with my egg and cheese sandwich and a carton of orange juice,” Natalie says with a laugh. “I was obsessed.”

Then, in 2002, after Natalie graduated college, she decided it was time she took that little red Honda Civic — and a breakfast sandwich to go — to Los Angeles, CA to pursue a career in broadcast journalism: “I thought,this is my 20′s, it’s now or never.” With that in mind, Natalie and her friend set out for the Golden State — trailing one another in separate cars, staying connected via walkie-talkie. “I think I had just gotten my first cellphone at that point,” Natalie explains, “but they weren’t really common yet, at least where I grew up, so it was more for emergencies.”

Since arriving in LA, Natalie’s career has taken off, and so too, has the breakfast sandwich that fuels her. The changes were gradual: first, some tomatoes, sautéed onions and spinach added for a healthy kick of flavor; then some dill whisked into the eggs for greater depth; some Tapatío hot sauce and melted jalapeño cheese for spice; and sliced avocado for a creamy, rich texture. But the real star of the show? Trader Joe’s cilantro-chive yogurt dip slathered over both pieces of toast. “I put that stuff on everything,” Natalie says. “It is heavenly, and in my opinion, it just completely makes the sandwich.’”

Natalie claims that she has yet to meet a breakfast sandwich that measures up to her creation, and coming from someone who has traveled the country in search of good food, I think that’s saying a lot. Not only is the sandwich incredibly healthy — with a perfect combination of good-for-you grains, healthy fats, energizing protein and vitamin-rich veggies — it is also completely satisfying and loaded with flavor. It is a classic American breakfast, all grown up and truly Eggtastic.

Three Quick Questions…and Natalie’s Answers

It’s your last meal. What do you have?

My husband and I met while I was serving/tray-passing caprese salad skewers at a restaurant, so to start, I would have a caprese salad. Then for the main course, I would have angel hair bolognese with spinach, tomatoes, tons of fresh Parmesan and plenty of red chile flakes. Plus red wine to go along with it. I think this would be my ultimate comfort food meal, and if I were going to die, I’d want to be comforted!

Your kitchen is burning down. What’s the one thing you grab?

Besides my cat? I do love my coffee maker because it grinds the beans for you — and I can’t live without coffee.

Do you have a favorite cookbook?

I really love my Longaberger Fresh From the Pantry cookbook. Longaberger is this great company based out of Dresden, Ohio, that sells baskets and pottery. Their cookbook is very user-friendly and filled with great photos.

Eggtastic Breakfast Sandwich

Recipe type: Breakfast

Author: Natalie J. Forte

Prep time: 5 mins

Cook time: 10 mins

Total time: 15 mins

Serves: 1

Serve alone or with your favorite fruit for a healthy, delicious way to start your day.

Ingredients

olive oil
1/4 of a large yellow onion, thinly sliced
1-2 cups fresh spinach
2 slices tomato
a slice or two of your favorite deli meat (optional)
2 large eggs
dash of sea salt
dash of black pepper
few dashes Tapatío (or other hot sauce)
pinch of fresh chopped dill, or a few dashes dried
1-2 tsp butter
1 slice Jalapeño cheese (or other sliced cheese)
generous smear of Trader Joe’s Cilantro Chive Yogurt Dip*
2 slices toasted whole wheat bread (or bread of your choosing)
1/2 ripe avocado, sliced

Instructions

In a small sauté pan, heat a splash of olive oil over medium-low heat, then add the onion and cook until soft. Add the fresh spinach and stir it around with the onions. Add the tomato and a slice or two of deli meat (if using), and cover pan. Keep the covered pan on the burner, but turn off heat.
Whisk together the eggs, sea salt, pepper, Tapatío and dill. In a separate sauté pan, melt butter over medium heat until it starts to foam. Add the eggs and stir gently with a spatula, folding up the edges of the cooked egg from the bottom of the pan. Once scrambled and eggs are nearly set, turn off the heat, gather the eggs into the center of the pan, and place the cheese on top of the eggs. Cover and let cheese melt.
Spread a generous amount of cilantro chive yogurt dip on two pieces of toast. Place the sliced avocado on one piece of toast, along with the onion, spinach, tomato and deli meat (if using). Using a spatula, transfer the egg/cheese mound on top of it all. Sandwich everything together with your second piece of toast, and slice sandwich in half.

Notes

Don’t have a Trader Joe’s in your area? Try this recipe: http://www.slashfood.com/2007/01/31/superbowl-dip-a-day-chive-cilantro-and-yogurt-dip/

2012-02-10T19:01:00.002-05:00

DIY vs. Buy: Should I Make My Own Pear Liqueur?

Posted by Marcia Simmons, February 10, 2012 at 8:15 AM

[Photograph: Liam Boylan]

I am obsessed with Champagne cocktails. So when I hit upon a DIY ingredient that pairs well with sparkling wine, it's time for me to buy bubbly by the case. One Thanksgiving, I happened upon a delicious fizzy cocktail made with sparkling wine, fresh pear syrup, and gin, which launched a new sub-obsession—finding ways to combine pears and Champagne.

So far, my favorite is a homemade pear liqueur made with brandy, because you get the sweetness of a fruit liqueur and a little dryness and rich flavor from brandy bundled into one ingredient. During the winter, many of the more showy fruits are out of season, but you can still find decent pears. (You have to love a fruit that goes equally well with stinky cheese and pork chops as it does with Champagne and brandy.)

What's Available to Buy

Though pear liqueur isn't something you'd find in every corner liquor store, places like BevMo tend to stock it. Pear liqueurs fall into two camps: Pear brandy is a liquor distilled from pears, and is sometimes called eau de vie de poire. These are the ones you'll see with the little pear in the bottle, and there's no sugar added. Pear liqueur, on the other hand, is a spirit plus sugar and pear flavoring. The spirit can be brandy or a liquor made from pears. Liqueurs made with a pear eau de vie as the base tends to be brighter and fruitier, while the brandy-based versions have deeper undertones.

Two of the standout liqueurs made with a pear-spirit base are Rothman & Winter's Orchard Pear and Mathilde Pear. Both are lovely and delicate with a strong flavor of fresh pears. Xante and Brillet pear liqueurs are made with a Cognac base. While the pear flavors are strong, the spirit also comes through and makes it about more than just a fruity beverage.

Why DIY?

Making your own pear eau de vie is an ambitious task, but making pear liqueur with another spirit as the base hits the "Yes, Make It Yourself!" trifecta: it's easy, cheap, and better-tasting than the store-bought stuff. My favorite is a brandy base, but you could also try it with whiskey or vodka. Pears are a flexible ingredient, so if you wanted to try a different second flavor in place of vanilla, you could go with cinnamon, ginger, orange, or almond instead.

The Recipe

A homemade pear liqueur made with brandy gives you the sweetness of a fruit liqueur and the dryness of brandy in one ingredient. This pear liqueur hits the "Do I DIY?" trifecta: easy, cheap, and better-tasting than the store-bought stuff.
Notes:

I used Bosc pears, but any pear will do.
You can substitute another spirit for brandy or replace the vanilla with another spice like ginger or a cinnamon stick.
Vanilla releases its flavor a lot more quickly than pears do.This is also true of other strong ingredients like ginger and cinnamon. So be sure to taste your liqueur as it infuses to see when you need to remove your secondary flavoring ingredient.
Straining through the coffee filter is recommended because it catches small, hard-to-see bits of pear that, when left in the liqueur, cause it to develop off flavors more quickly. I recommend keeping it no longer than 2 months. Refrigeration is not needed.
The fruit you used to make this liqueur is great in desserts or on ice cream, so hang onto it after straining.

Special equipment: Fine-mesh strainer, coffee filter, paring knife

Ingredients

yield: Makes about 21/4 cups, active time 10 minutes, total time 7 days

2 ripe pears, divided (organic preferred)
1 vanilla bean
1 cup brandy
1 cup sugar
1 cup water

Procedures

Wash and chop one pear, discarding the seeds and core. Leave the skin on. Split and scrape the vanilla bean.
Place one chopped pear and the vanilla bean in a sealable glass jar and cover with brandy. The jar should have enough room to add another cup of liquid later in the process. Seal and shake, then let steep for 2 days. Remove vanilla bean, and then let steep for another 3 days.
Chop the second pear, discarding the seeds and core. Add it to a pot, along with the water and sugar, then stir and bring to a boil on medium heat, about 5 to 7 minutes. Reduce heat and simmer for an additional 5 minutes. Let the syrup mixture cool.
Once cooled, pour the syrup (with the fruit) into the steeping jar. Shake and let steep for 2 days. Taste, and if desired flavor is achieved, strain through a fine mesh strainer and then a coffee filter into a bottle or jar.

(Taken from Serious Eats)

2012-02-05T16:58:00.000-05:00

She doesn't answer the phone

In 1951, E. B. White — the novelist responsible for, most notably, Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little — was accused by the ASPCA of not paying his dog tax and, as a result, "harboring" an unlicensed dog. He responded by way of the following delightful letter.

(Source: Letters of a Nation; Image: E. B. White with his dachshund, Minnie, via Mister Crew.)

12 April 1951

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
York Avenue and East 92nd Street
New York, 28, NY

Dear Sirs:

I have your letter, undated, saying that I am harboring an unlicensed dog in violation of the law. If by "harboring" you mean getting up two or three times every night to pull Minnie's blanket up over her, I am harboring a dog all right. The blanket keeps slipping off. I suppose you are wondering by now why I don't get her a sweater instead. That's a joke on you. She has a knitted sweater, but she doesn't like to wear it for sleeping; her legs are so short they work out of a sweater and her toenails get caught in the mesh, and this disturbs her rest. If Minnie doesn't get her rest, she feels it right away. I do myself, and of course with this night duty of mine, the way the blanket slips and all, I haven't had any real rest in years. Minnie is twelve.

In spite of what your inspector reported, she has a license. She is licensed in the State of Maine as an unspayed bitch, or what is more commonly called an "unspaded" bitch. She wears her metal license tag but I must say I don't particularly care for it, as it is in the shape of a hydrant, which seems to me a feeble gag, besides being pointless in the case of a female. It is hard to believe that any state in the Union would circulate a gag like that and make people pay money for it, but Maine is always thinking of something. Maine puts up roadside crosses along the highways to mark the spots where people have lost their lives in motor accidents, so the highways are beginning to take on the appearance of a cemetery, and motoring in Maine has become a solemn experience, when one thinks mostly about death. I was driving along a road near Kittery the other day thinking about death and all of a sudden I heard the spring peepers. That changed me right away and I suddenly thought about life. It was the nicest feeling.

You asked about Minnie's name, sex, breed, and phone number. She doesn't answer the phone. She is a dachshund and can't reach it, but she wouldn't answer it even if she could, as she has no interest in outside calls. I did have a dachshund once, a male, who was interested in the telephone, and who got a great many calls, but Fred was an exceptional dog (his name was Fred) and I can't think of anything offhand that he wasn't interested in. The telephone was only one of a thousand things. He loved life — that is, he loved life if by "life" you mean "trouble," and of course the phone is almost synonymous with trouble. Minnie loves life, too, but her idea of life is a warm bed, preferably with an electric pad, and a friend in bed with her, and plenty of shut-eye, night and days. She's almost twelve. I guess I've already mentioned that. I got her from Dr. Clarence Little in 1939. He was using dachshunds in his cancer-research experiments (that was before Winchell was running the thing) and he had a couple of extra puppies, so I wheedled Minnie out of him. She later had puppies by her own father, at Dr. Little's request. What do you think about that for a scandal? I know what Fred thought about it. He was some put out.

Sincerely yours,

E. B. White

2012-02-05T16:48:00.001-05:00

The battle for McPherson Square

Rough police tactics rout 300 protesters from their tent city in the heart of Washington

VIDEO

BY JEFFERSON MORLEY

Chaos at OccupyDC (Credit: Eddie Becker)

TOPICS:OCCUPYDC, OCCUPY WALL STREET, NATIONAL PAR

“Move back!” shouted the cop wielding a clear Plexiglas shield emblazoned with the words “U.S. Park Police” as he moved into the crowd of demonstrators thronging McPherson Square on Saturday afternoon. The photographer next to me was shouting, “I’m press!” but that didn’t seem to impress the phalanx of officers advancing on us, applying their shields to our shoulders.

“Move back!” the cop explained, and I went sprawling into what used to be the main information tent of OccupyDC. It was the place where you could always find someone who could tell you about the camp’s activities. It was a place where I had debated fiat money with a Ron Paul supporter, chatted with a delusional homeless man, and talked union politics with a woman from National Nurses United. Now the tent was a flat lumpy mess, and people were scrambling over it to get away from the suddenly aggressive cops. Nearby, mounted officers on horses were slowly wading their steeds into a river of people, and some screamed in panic at the approach of the massive animals.

What had started 12 hours earlier as a politically tinged eviction of an unsanitary but entirely peaceful encampment had suddenly turned into an aggressive display of force by the National Park Police officers (including 24 officers bused in from New York City.)

By late Saturday night, the occupiers of McPherson Square had been evicted. The 300 or so denizens of the encampment — and several hundred supporters who rallied to their cause — were dispersed. Seven people were arrested in the course of the day. At least three people were injured. Your reporter lost his notebook but was otherwise unhurt.

The tent of dreams

The battle of McPherson Square began at dawn on Saturday. Park Police officers had received a call around 2 in the morning saying duty called. They assembled at the intersection of 15thStreet and K Street at 5 in the morning and moved in to the OccupyDC camp within the hour. The first thing they told the protesters was that they would have to take down their“Tent of Dreams,” a massive blue sheet they had draped over the statuesque shoulders of Civil War Gen. James McPherson in the center of the park.

The occupation of the park had begun 129 days before when a small group, inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York, had started camping on the grass and holding daily general assemblies. Over the next four months, the camp grew to more than 100 tents and became a hub for protests targeting the city’s political elite, ranging fromCongress to the Chamber of Commerce to the Democratic National Congressional Committee.

The tent of dreams was a violation of Park Service rules, the cops explained. If the protesters did not take it down, the police would. The protesters decided to take down their pride and joy. ”It was sad,” said John Zangas, one of the protesters. “We put up the Tent of Dreams for all those Americans who have lost their houses in the last couple of years. We wanted to make a symbol for them and the world to see that someone was standing up for them.” In the early morning light, the 50-foot-square nylon drop cloth, emblazoned with twinkling stars and slogans (“Shalom”), was folded up and removed.

The Park Police were well prepared for their mission. Under the command of two commanding officers named Dillon and Reid, 75 officers methodically and politely took control of the park over the course of the day. Citing National Park Service regulations against overnight camping, they asked protestors to leave, giving them time to take personal possessions. The cops set up black iron barricades, and set about inspecting the uninhabited tent city that had captured the capital’s imagination with its idealism and its squalor. Park Service employees in yellow hazmat suits looked through the tents, stuffing abandoned camping gear into trash bags and hauling away refuse.

The process wasn’t always peaceful. To secure the northeast corner of the square, a file of 40 officers bulled their way down one of the sidewalks of the square while the demonstrators chanted, “This is a public space.” One of the occupiers, young Iraq war veteran Michael Patterson, cursed the police but gave way to the overwhelming display of force by the impassive officers. Another protester, a musician named Jonny, called out “mic check” and read the text of the First Amendment. The crowd read along, declaring “Congress shall make no law … abridging … the right of the people peaceably to assemble.”

The dismay of the demonstrators was palpable. “I think the tactic of camping out has lost its usefulness,” an occupier named Travis told me. “But I’m here in solidarity because there are a lot of people who have no place to go. How can they evict homeless people from the only home they have?”

By 3 o’clock, it seemed the protesters and police had reached a degree of mutual understanding. As the police dismantled the tents, the demonstrators stood back and contented themselves with mic checks about why they joined the movement. (“I occupy because my friends can’t afford to go to college,” said Ben, a freshman at American University.) While a few young men taunted the police as “fascists” and “faggots,” equally outspoken women in the crowd rebuked them for their language and urged them to show respect. The cops, carrying guns and gun tear gas, spoke mostly among themselves.

“I look at these cops, most of them are 26 or 27 years old, and I know who they are answering to,” said Andrew Benthall, a bartender and Occupy sympathizer who also stood on the front lines of the confrontation. “They’re just like me. They answer to their wives and their bosses. They’re not bad people. ”

The raid came five days after the Park Service, under pressure from Darrell Issa, a senior Republican congressman, posted an announcement that a previously ignored ban on overnight camping in the park would be enforced. For many demonstrators, Issa, a conservative Republican and the wealthiest man in Congress, embodies the 1 percent elite, whose privileges, they say, come at the expense of the general public.

“They’re not listening to the people”

The trouble started around 5 o’clock when the cops turned their attention to the last uncleared quadrant of the park, home to the camp’s library, a big blue tent where you could borrow a book by Vaclav Havel or a biography of Che Guevara. As darkness and a light rain began to fall, the officers negotiated with the camp’s library committee. When the occupiers declined to leave, the cops seemed to lose patience and professionalism for the first time all day. Two lines of police officers advanced much more aggressively than they had before catching the protesters in a pincher action.

Chaos ensued with the advancing officers shouting, “You have to leave, this area is closed” while shoving people backward. Dozens of people were knocked down. The arrival of the mounted police sent people running for safety. As the demonstrators backed up onto the empty expanse of blocked-off K Street, they took pictures with their smartphones and chanted “shame, shame, shame” at the police. After about 10 minutes, everybody, except for the cops and the cleanup crews, had been forced out of McPherson Square.

As the officers set up barricades on the park’s perimeter, the frustration of the demonstrators exploded. “You are animals,” one woman shouted at the line of blue-helmeted officers. “You almost trampled a little girl. Do you have kids?” Another man said, “Go back to Syria. They need you there.” One man who had been taunting the cops all day with vulgar sexual insults was knocked down, manhandled, and hauled away bound and tied.

Stunned but unhurt, Hillary Lazar, a local artist and member of the library committee, said the library holding of more than 1,000 books had not been damaged during the police action.

Laura Potter, a retired Army nurse on disability, watched in disbelief as her green tent was trampled.

“They’re only here to protect the people in government,” she said of the police, leaning on her metal crutch. “They’re not listening to the people. They’re listening to Darrell Issa. They’re using their sticks on people when they should be using their badges to protect them.”

As the rain continued to fall, 40 officers stood in a long line looking grim. The protesters called an impromptu general assembly in the middle of K Street. On the boulevard that houses the city’s leading law firms and lobbying shops, these young radicals reviewed the events of the day with yet another mic check.

“We have seen unprovoked violence toward the occupation in DC,” began one speaker, and the crowd of perhaps 50 people repeated his words. As people recounted the best and the worst things about the day, their spirits seems to rise. “We changed the discourse of this city,” said one man. Another pointed out that President Obama lived less than two blocks away, and the chant “Obama is responsible” went up. A third man criticized the movement for not cultivating local political allies who might have protected the camp. ”It is time for us to take this occupation out into every neighborhood of this city,” he said. “On the edge of the crowd, Ryan Gomez, a perennially cheerful 24-year-old occupier was shaking his head but smiling. “We’ll be back tomorrow,” he assured me. “This movement is not going away.”

As tempers cooled and rain let up, the agitated but proud protesters traded hugs, tears and stories while the stoic but equally proud cops retreated silently into the night, their mission accomplished. The ability of the federal government to clear the streets of peaceful protesters had been established, while those who speak for the 99 percent in the nation’s capital could boast they had exposed the face of 1 percent power. In the battle of McPherson Square both sides could claim a victory in a struggle that is sure to continue.

: Jefferson Morley is the Washington editor of Salon and author of the forthcoming book, Snow-Storm in August: Washington City, Francis Scott Key, and the Forgotten Race Riot of 1835 (Nan Talese/Doubleday).More Jefferson Morley

2012-02-05T16:45:00.000-05:00

cheddar, beer and mustard pull-apart bread

You might have created a monster. I went back and forth, again and again, before sharing the recipe for potato chip cookies. My presumption was that most sane people would find them revolting; that the comment section would be a string of “eww”s. Silly me! It turns out that a whole lot of you are closet potato chip sandwich lovers, and worse. You put Doritos on your pizza! You put Cheetos on your tuna! I am clearly among my brethren. This will only lead to trouble, as the next time I have a weird, funky combination of flavors I want to try out, who will stop me? Clearly, not you.

Like this. For a while, I’ve been enamored with this idea of pull-apart bread, such asFlo Braker’s from her latest book. Yet as lovely as buttery lemon sugar is, or cinnamon sugar for that matter, is, I wanted to give it a savory spin. My first inclination was to go with the universally adored (but kinda overused these days, don’t you think?) cheddar, chives and bacon — i.e. baked potato toppings — but what I’ve really been dreaming about lately is Welsh rarebit, which I understand to be pub food in places I haven’t been lucky enough to travel to yet. It’s a thick, punchy, rich sauce made with cheddar and mustard and beer and butter and cream and spices and it is often ladled over a piece of toast, such as rye or another brown bread. And I want it.

In my kitchen, with nobody there to stop me, I mashed the two up. I made a rich bread dough, tender enough to “pull apart” with butter and eggs, but then beer where the milk or water would be. I threw in a slip of rye flour for flavor and muscle, but you can totally skip that if you don’t have rye flour around. I made a sauce of melted butter, mustard, a little steak sauce and a dash of hot sauce and brushed it over the dough and then I sprinkled the whole thing thickly with shredded cheddar that had been spiced with paprika, mustard powder, salt and pepper. And then I cut the whole thing into stacked squares and baked it and shortly after that, pulled from the oven a floppy, Slinky or card catalog of a loaf of bread that made me immediately want to finish that cold beer in the fridge.

Alas, it was time for preschool pick-up and so, as usual these days, I behaved like an adult. I promise not make the same mistake on Sunday.

More big game favorites from the archives: Meatball Subs with Gruyere and Caramelized Onions, Meatball Sliders, Beef Chili with Cheddar Biscuits and Sour Cream, Cheese Straws, Onion Tart with Mustard and Fennel, Soft Pretzels, Bretzel Rolls, Feta Salsa, Salted Brown Butter Rice Crispy Treats, Potato Chip Cookies ,Chocolate Caramel Crack (with Saltines!) and Coffee Toffee Cookies
One year ago: Mushroom and Farro Soup
Two years ago: Best Cocoa Brownies
Three years ago: Warm Butternut Squash and Chickpea Salad
Four years ago: Rigatoni with Eggplant Puree
Five years ago: Paula Wolfert’s Hummus and Icebox Cake
Cheddar, Beer and Mustard Pull-Apart Rye Bread
This was inspired in structure by Flo Braker’s Lemon Bread; in flavor by Welsh Rarebit.
Bread
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 cup plus 1/3 beer, preferably dark but really, use whatever you like to drink
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, divided
1/3 cup rye flour (use additional a-p flour if you don’t have this)
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 1/4 teaspoons (1 envelope) instant yeast
1 teaspoon table salt
2 large eggs, at room temperature
Filling
3 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 tablespoon Dijon or a mustard of your choice
1 1/2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
Dash of hot sauce
1 teaspoon mustard powder
1 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon table salt
Several grinds black pepper
1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar
Make dough: In a small saucepan, heat the 4 tablespoons butter and 1/4 cup of beer, just until the butter has melted. Remove from heat and add the remaining 1/3 cup beer. Set aside to cool down slightly. You want the mixture warm (110 to 116 degrees), but not steaming hot.
Meanwhile, in the bowl of a stand mixer, stir together 2 cups of the all-purpose flour, sugar, yeast and table salt. With the mixer on low, pour in the butter-beer mixture, mixing only until the flour is moistened. Add eggs, one at a time, and mix until combined. The batter will look lumpy, but will become smooth in a moment. Add the remaining 1/2 cup all-purpose flour and all of the rye flour, mixing until just combined. Replace paddle with a dough hook and let the machine knead the dough for 3 to 4 minutes on low.
Oil a medium/large bowl and transfer dough to it. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and set aside for 50 to 60 minutes, until doubled. Meanwhile, prepare fillings.
[Do ahead: You can also rest the dough in the fridge overnight -- wrapped tightly with plastic. The next day, let it rest at room temperature for an hour before rolling out.]
Make fillings: Back in the same small saucepan you used for the butter and beer, melt the 3 tablespoons butter. Remove from heat and whisk in mustard, Worcestershire and hot sauce until smooth. Set aside.
In the bottom of a medium bowl, stir together mustard powder, paprika, table salt and several grinds of black pepper. Add shredded cheddar and toss until grated strands are evenly coated with spices. I like to keep this in the fridge until needed so it doesn’t get soft and clumpy, making it harder to sprinkle over the dough in a bit.
Assemble bread: Either coat a 9-by-5 loaf pan lightly with butter or a nonstick spray and set aside.
Turn dough out onto a well-floured counter and roll the dough into a 20-by-12-inch rectangle, making sure it doesn’t stick to the counter by lifting sections and re-flouring the counter as needed. Brush the butter-mustard-Worcestershire mixture evenly over the whole surface, right up to the edges. Cut the dough crosswise into 5 strips; each should be 12-by-4 inches. Sprinkle the first one evenly with a heaping 1/4 cup of the grated cheese (which is now fine to leave out at room temperature). Gently place another strip on top of it, coat it with another heaping 1/4 cup of cheese, and repeat with remaining strips until they are stacked 5-high and all of the cheese is used.
With your very sharpest serrated knife, gently — so gently! The lightest sawing motions the weight of the blade will allow! — cut your stack into 6 to 7 2-inch segments (each stacked segment should be 4-by-2 inches). I say 6 to 7 range because while your 12-inch length should clearly yield only 6 2-inch segments, I find that the soft dough stretches so much when you lift and stack it that I end up with 7. Either amount will fit; this is totally not something to fret over.
Arrange stacks of dough down the length of your prepared loaf pan as if filling a card catalog drawer. I make this easier by standing my loaf pan up on its short end to make the next part easier. If, when you finish filing all of your dough stacks, you ended up with less than needed for the dough “cards” to reach the end of the pan, when you return the pan to rest flat on the counter again, just shimmy it a little so the dough centers. It will all even out in the final rise/oven. If you ended up with toomany dough cards, before you add the last stack, simply press gently on the dough already filed to make room for it.
Loosely cover the pan with more plastic wrap and set it aside to rise again for 30 to 45 more minutes. Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
Bake loaf for 25 to 35 minutes, until puffed and brown. Transfer it to a wire rack and let it cool for 5 minutes before flipping it out onto a serving plate/cutting board. Serve warm with cold beer.
Loaf “pulls” apart the easiest when it is hot or warm. If it has cooled beyond the point that the layers wish to easily separate, simply serve it in thin slices. Wrap leftovers in plastic and keep at room temperature for a day. I bet the leftovers would be fantastic reheated with scrambled eggs.

Dinner with Sean, Sarah and good friends

2012-02-04T21:57:00.001-05:00

Sarah & Noah

Had dinner tonight with Sarah, Billy, Sean, Carl, and Nicole. It was great fun.

Mother and Daughter

Billy and Sarah

Nicole


Boyfriend

Sean & Sarah

H.L. Mencken and the meaning of life

2012-01-31T20:29:00.001-05:00

I've always admired H.L. Mencken's wit -- he's a cynic like me. He spells out a lot of my feelings in this letter. We must be kindred spirits. Enjoy.

Tuesday, 31 January 2012

On the Meaning of Life

In July of 1931, author and philosopher Will Durant wrote to a number of notable figures and asked, essentially, "What is the meaning of life?" His letter concluded:

Spare me a moment to tell me what meaning life has for you, what keeps you going, what help—if any—religion gives you, what are the sources of your inspiration and your energy, what is the goal or motive-force of your toil, where you find your consolations and your happiness, where, in the last resort, your treasure lies. Write briefly if you must; write at length and at leisure if you possibly can; for every word from you will be precious to me.

Durant received many replies, a selection of which were compiled in the book, "On the Meaning of Life." By far the greatest response, in my opinion, came from the great H. L. Mencken. It can, and should, be read below.

(Source: On the Meaning of Life; Image: H. L. Mencken in 1927, courtesy ofVanity Fair.)

Dear Durant

You ask me, in brief, what satisfaction I get out of life, and why I go on working. I go on working for the same reason that a hen goes on laying eggs. There is in every living creature an obscure but powerful impulse to active functioning. Life demands to be lived. Inaction, save as a measure of recuperation between bursts of activity, is painful and dangerous to the healthy organism—in fact, it is almost impossible. Only the dying can be really idle.

The precise form of an individual’s activity is determined, of course, by the equipment with which he came into the world. In other words, it is determined by his heredity. I do not lay eggs, as a hen does, because I was born without any equipment for it. For the same reason I do not get myself elected to Congress, or play the violoncello, or teach metaphysics in a college, or work in a steel mill. What I do is simply what lies easiest to my hand. It happens that I was born with an intense and insatiable interest in ideas, and thus like to play with them. It happens also that I was born with rather more than the average facility for putting them into words. In consequence, I am a writer and editor, which is to say, a dealer in them and concoctor of them.

There is very little conscious volition in all this. What I do was ordained by the inscrutable fates, not chosen by me. In my boyhood, yielding to a powerful but still subordinate interest in exact facts, I wanted to be a chemist, and at the same time my poor father tried to make me a business man. At other times, like any other realtively poor man, I have longed to make a lot of money by some easy swindle. But I became a writer all the same, and shall remain one until the end of the chapter, just as a cow goes on giving milk all her life, even though what appears to be her self-interest urges her to give gin.

I am far luckier than most men, for I have been able since boyhood to make a good living doing precisely what I have wanted to do—what I would have done for nothing, and very gladly, if there had been no reward for it. Not many men, I believe, are so fortunate. Millions of them have to make their livings at tasks which really do not interest them. As for me, I have had an extraordinarily pleasant life, despite the fact that I have had the usual share of woes. For in the midst of these woes I still enjoyed the immense satisfaction which goes with free activity. I have done, in the main, exactly what I wanted to do. Its possible effects on other people have interested me very little. I have not written and published to please other people, but to satisfy myself, just as a cow gives milk, not to profit the dairyman, but to satisfy herself. I like to think that most of my ideas have been sound ones, but I really don’t care. The world may take them or leave them. I have had my fun hatching them.

Next to agreeable work as a means of attaining happiness I put what Huxley called the domestic affections—the day to day intercourse with family and friends. My home has seen bitter sorrow, but it has never seen any serious disputes, and it has never seen poverty. I was completely happy with my mother and sister, and I am completely happy with my wife. Most of the men I commonly associate with are friends of very old standing. I have known some of them for more than thirty years. I seldom see anyone, intimately, whom I have known for less than ten years. These friends delight me. I turn to them when work is done with unfailing eagerness. We have the same general tastes, and see the world much alike. Most of them are interestd in music, as I am. It has given me more pleasure in this life than any external thing. I love it more every year.

As for religion, I am quite devoid of it. Never in my adult life have I experienced anything that could be plausibly called a religious impulse. My father and grandfather were agnostics before me, and though I was sent to Sunday-school as a boy and exposed to the Christian theology I was never taught to believe it. My father thought that I should learn what it was, but it apparently never occurred to him that I would accept it. He was a good psychologist. What I got in Sunday-school—beside a wide acquaintance with Christian hymnology—was simply a firm conviction that the Christian faith was full of palpable absurdities, and the Christian God preposterous. Since that time I have read a great deal in theology—perhaps much more than the average clergyman—but I have never discovered any reason to change my mind.

The act of worship, as carried on by Christians, seems to me to be debasing rather than ennobling. It involves grovelling before a Being who, if He really exists, deserves to be denounced instead of respected. I see little evidence in this world of the so-called goodness of God. On the contrary, it seems to me that, on the strength of His daily acts, He must be set down a most cruel, stupid and villainous fellow. I can say this with a clear conscience, for He has treated me very well—in fact, with vast politeness. But I can’t help thinking of his barbaric torture of most of the rest of humanity. I simply can’t imagine revering the God of war and politics, theology and cancer.

I do not believe in immortality, and have no desire for it. The belief in it issues from the puerile egos of inferior men. In its Christian form it is little more than a device for getting revenge upon those who are having a better time on this earth. What the meaning of human life may be I don’t know: I incline to suspect that it has none. All I know about it is that, to me at least, it is very amusing while it lasts. Even its troubles, indeed, can be amusing. Moreover, they tend to foster the human qualities that I admire most—courage and its analogues. The noblest man, I think, is that one who fights God, and triumphs over Him. I have had little of this to do. When I die I shall be content to vanish into nothingness. No show, however good, could conceivably be good for ever.

Sincerely yours,

H. L. Mencken

Hammer Films

2012-01-29T17:30:00.001-05:00

Remember all the horror films from the 50's and 60's. Many of those were made by Hammer Films in Great Britain and starred Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. They were the B-movies that we loved at the theater and drive-in . It appears they're back at it again with a film starring Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter) called "The Woman In Black." Read about the resurrection of the studio here.

Sourdough Bread

2012-01-25T20:18:00.005-05:00

I have a bread machine. I think I'll try this.

Quick Sourdough Bread

Need a quick sidedish for a weeknight meal? Try Quick Sourdough Bread - it's a great machine bread recipe and tastes fantastic. Add some butter and you're good to go.

Ingredients

2 1/4 cups bread flour
1 tablespoon wheat germ
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup dairy sour cream
1 tablespoon vinegar
1/2 egg white
1/2 tablespoon water
1 teaspoon poppy seed
2 teaspoons yeast

Instructions

Load as directed for your bread machine.

2 Corn Bread Recipes

2012-01-25T20:16:00.003-05:00

Recipe: Yankee Corn Bread

Courtesy of: Neven Lee Gibbs, Fr, RC, SSG 11th CAV (Ret) Author, Musician, Actor, humorist and accused of being a character.

Note: “Recipe from the U. S. Civil War. Popular on the Confederate side but also eaten on the Union side.”

Ingredients

1 box of corn bread mix muffin mix (From RecipeLion editor: I suggest Jiffy, 8.5-once box)
1 package of bacon (or as desired)
2 to 3 green onions
buttermilk (as needed)
salt and pepper to taste
You Will Also Need:
1 muffin pan
a frying pan

Instructions

Mix corn bread according to instructions, taste for sweetness. Add sugar as needed. Mix some more.
Preheat oven per cooking directions on box.
Grease muffin pan with “shortnen’, old bacon grease, bear grease or buffalo hump. Modern sprays can be used.”
Pour corn bread into muffin pan. Use a spatula to avoid getting the rest on your fingers.
Now “go do something else until the timer goes off.”
Take out of oven or dutch oven (if used) to cool.
Cut up bacon or “fatback” into small pieces and fry up crispy. Remove, set aside and keep warm. Save bacon grease.
Take 1 to 2 corn muffins and crumble on a plate.
Skin bad parts off of green onions and cut up with scissors.
Crumble some onions on top of cornbread.
Dump crispy bacon on top and “add one tablespoon of heart attack…I mean [bacon] grease in a circular motion.”
Pour a little buttermilk on top of that. Stir with a fork. Should be firm and showing liquid between particles. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste and serve.
Now enjoy! (Nevin suggests eating this recipe before a nap).

NOTE: To make this recipe above truly vintage try making the cornbread from scratch with this Sweet Buttermilk Corn Bread recipe.

Per Nevin this Yankee corn bread was a family recipe handed down to him. More comments from Nevin on the history of this recipe:

“The recipe is an accurate description of actually cooking it in a kitchen covering the time period from the Civil War to today.”

“Northerners passing by may comment with words like “My god! I hope
you get well soon,” or “I didn’t know you were sick…And all over the
plate too!” Ignore them or threaten them with your musket…”

Skillet Cornbread

By: CanolaInfo

This image courtesy of CanolaInfo

Skillet Cornbread is an authentic home style cornbread that will remind you of simpler times. Enjoy this cornbread recipe with butter and honey and with any meal. There's nothing better.

Ingredients

Canola cooking spray
1 cup all purpose flour
2/3 cup cornmeal
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
2/3 cup skim milk
1 can (12-ounces) whole kernel corn, drained
1 can (4.5-ounces) shopped green chilies
2 tablespoons red pepper, finely chopped
1 teaspoon onion powder
2 tablespoons canola oil
1 egg, lightly beaten

Instructions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
Spay oven-proof skillet with canola oil cooking spray and place in oven to heat.
Combine flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, salt and pepper. Make a well in the center of mixture.
Combine milk and remaining ingredients. Add to dry ingredients, stirring until just moistened. Pour batter into hot skillet. Bake for 25 minutes or until golden.

2012-01-23T17:45:00.001-05:00

30 Amazing Facts About Your Brain
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Useful Self Development Brain Stuff
1. You have a finite amount of will power each day because to exercise will power you need energy in the form of oxygen and glucose That’s why it’s harder to say ‘no’ when you are tired or not feeling yourself.
2. A thought is a physical pathway in the brain. The more you have that thought the more you groove that path and the easier it is to have it again. That’s why having the thought “Why do I suck?” is never a great idea.
3. Speaking of which, you have approximately 70,000 thoughts per day, although many will be the same ones looping round and round on your grooved cranial highway.
So make sure you don’t think, “Why do I suck?” 50,000 times a day, or suck ye shall.
4. Even if you consider yourself a left-brained person, your brain will still switch over to the right side every 90 to 120 minutes and then back again.
That’s why even left-brained people can have times of the day when they are more creative and right-brained people can sometimes get their taxes in order.
Note: If you want to know how you can tell which side is dominant at any one time, check out Creativity – Guaranteed and you can then plan your time accordingly.
5. Reading out loud to kids accelerates their brain development.
6. Reframing negative events in a positive light literally rewires your brain and can make you a happier person, as can regular meditation.

Some Numbers To Wrap Your Brain Around
7. The brain is approximately 75% water, but you should never drink it.
8. Your brain only weighs about 3lbs yet the greedy bastard uses between 20% and 25% of your energy supplies each day.
9. There are approximately 10 to the power of 60 atoms in the universe. Your brain laughs in the face of that figure however, as it has 10 to the power of 1,000,000 different ways it can wire itself up.
That’s the number 10 followed up with 1 million zeroes, which is to all intents and purposes (for anybody not called Stephen Hawking or Rob Collins), an infinite amount of ways.
10. Speaking of large numbers, there are approximately 1.1 trillion cells and 100 billion neurons in the average human brain.
11. The slowest speed information passes around your brain is approximately 260 mph

Brain Trivia
12. Your brain was disproportionately large compared to other organs when you were born.
That’s why babies look a bit like aliens. Not yours of course, yours are cute, just other peoples babies.
13. If you lose blood flow to your brain you will last about 10 second before you pass out.
14. Your brain has no pain receptors which is why if I managed to remove the top of your skull without you noticing I could poke around all day without you feeling a thing. The skull removal may hurt a bit though.
15. Even though we say the amygdala regulates danger, the cerebellum motor control, and the limbic system emotions etc, this is somewhat misleading as no part operates independently and all need other parts of the brain to get their job done.
16. Your peripheral vision improves at night which is why pilots are taught to use their peripheral vision when looking for traffic.

Your Brain Is Amazing
17. Leaving aside degenerative brain disease, your brain never loses the ability to learn and change because it’s effectively plastic and constantly rewiring itself.
Leopards may indeed not change their spots, but you’re not a Leopard and you can change yourself and your brain is up for the challenge.
18. It ‘s a self development urban myth that we only use 10% of our brain. We use it all and if you don’t believe me cut a bit out and see what happens.
Note: Unfortunately the new movie, Limitless due out soon is going to re-embed this myth as it’s based on the story line that we use 20% of our brain and you can take a pill to access the other 80%. Ho-hum.
19. If you were to measure your brainwave activity you wouldn’t see any drop off when you’re asleep.
You may be napping, but your brain is still working hard pumping your heart, digesting your food, maintaining your blood pressure and much more to make sure you don’t wake up dead.
20. Research has shown that the hippocampus which which deals with visual-spatial awareness, is larger in London Taxi drivers than normal people. London ‘cabbies’ have to spend months, sometimes years, learning literally every street in the Capital before they are allowed a license.
This process is known as ‘The Knowledge’ and it literally enlarges that part of their brain. Unfortunately, it doesn’t help them with anger management issues when cyclists get in their way.
21. Until relatively recently scientists thought that the brain was the only area of the human body that didn’t generate new cells. We now know that’s not true and the brain does reproduce shiny new cells for you to use
22. You have something in your brain called mirror neurons. If you see somebody stub their toe for example, the same pain area will light up in your own brain causing you to flinch.
Mirror neurons weren’t even known to exist prior to the early 1990’s, but now there is a growing belief in the scientific community they are responsible for us feeling empathy toward others.
23. When somebody takes cocaine their pleasure center (nucleus accumbens) lights up and dopamine and serotonin are released. Fortunately, you don’t have to blow your life savings, act like a dick and lose your nasal lining to get similar results.
Giving to charity or helping people in need also activates the nucleus accumbens. What a win/win that is, eh?

Your Brain Is a Dumbass
24. Multi-tasking is a self development urban myth. You simply cannot do it efficiently no matter what manufacturers of smart phones want you to believe.
According to the University of Utah, there are a few people (about 2.5% of the population) who can do two things consciously* at once without seeing any degradation in performance.
They are called super-taskers.
However, for most people all the brain is doing is going backwards and forwards very quickly and giving the illusion of multi-tasking. The reality is performance is inhibited by this approach not improved.
* I do appreciate that you can do multiple things unconsciously at once such as driving and talking. (Not texting though!)
25. Your brain is constantly lying to you when you have your eyes open. Because it cannot deal with every single detail that you’re looking at, the occipital lobe is joining the dots with what it presumes is there.
26. Similarly, your brain doesn’t record memories like video as it would be easy to assume. It takes snapshots of the more important bits and then when you recall the event it guesses what happened in between based on prior experience.
27. Your brain finds it very easy to create false memories largely because of the above and the fact that it spends so much time guessing what’s happening.
When scientists exposed people to Photoshopped images of themselves at various event years prior they were soon able to explain what they were doing and recall the event with clarity even though they were never there.
There will be events you swear blind happened the way you remember, but never actually did. A sobering thought.
28. The reason why some Chinese born people struggle to pronounce words like ‘fried’ is not because they can’t be arsed to learn them, as I ignorantly and embarrassingly believed when I was younger.
It’s because no similar pronunciation is needed in the Chinese language.
Therefore, if they are not exposed to the English language before around the age of 3, that part of the brain is allocated to other purposes.
29. Your brain is fairly crap at distinguishing between what’s really happening and what you are merely imagining. Which is why horror films scare people and porn films, er…ahem, well you know.
30. The brain is very poor at concentrating for long periods of time and needs to clear it’s head so to speak about every 90 minutes or so.
Which is why if you’re delivering training and you want to maximize results, you should allow people to take lots of mini breaks rather than one long break for lunch.
I’d love your take. Anything surprising to you? Or do you have any amazing facts of your own? If so let me know in the comments.

From the Brown Eyed Baker

2012-01-23T17:40:00.000-05:00

Chipped Ham BBQ Sandwiches

January 23, 2012

This is my notion of comfort food at its finest: an old family recipe, not-so-good-for-you ingredients, and something that I crave approximately once a year, usually always during the winter. This past weekend the craving set in, after not having these since last January. The recipe for these sandwiches comes from a family member on my mom’s side, Sara, although I am unsure of how we are related. My mom just always referred to these as “Sara’s Ham BBQ Sandwiches”; she made them fairly frequently when we were kids, but then they disappeared out of her rotation. Last winter they suddenly popped into my head and I immediately had to have them, so I had my mom dig out the recipe. The craving was instantly satisfied and I was taken back to my childhood. They’re great for a Saturday or Sunday lunch, and especially good when you’re sitting down to watch sports, which might be why I’m always craving them smack dab in the middle of hockey season, right near the Super Bowl. My inner foodie/sports intuition at work, for sure

Now, “chipped ham” is a very Pittsburgh thing, but I have found that in other areas of the country it is known as “chopped ham” or “chip-chop ham”. Basically, it’s deli ham meat that is almost shaved it’s so thin and in pieces. I usually always give it another coarse chop when I get it home since this sandwich is best when all of the pieces (ham, egg, and cheese) are cut into smaller, uniform pieces.

These are easy to throw together, which makes them perfect for serving a hungry crowd. Just mix together the sandwich ingredients, assemble them on the buns, wrap each one in foil and pop in the oven for 30 minutes. They come out warm, gooey thanks to the melted cheese, and with the buns having just a touch of crunch. They would be great for the Super Bowl, or any time you’re having some friends over and want something warm, but easy and casual.

Do you have any old favorite family recipes like this one? Maybe not the best for you, but one you crave every once and a great while?

Chipped Ham BBQ Sandwiches
Yield: 12 sandwiches
Prep Time: 15 minutes | Bake Time: 30 minutes
2 pounds chipped ham, chopped
4 hard boiled eggs, peeled and chopped small
8 ounces Velveeta cheese, diced small
1 (12-ounce) bottle chili sauce
12 sandwich buns
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. In a large bowl mix together the chipped ham, eggs, cheese, and chili sauce, ensuring that the sauce evenly coats all of the other ingredients.
3. Divide the chipped ham mixture evenly between all of the buns. Wrap each one in foil, place on a tray and bake in the oven for 30 minutes, until hot in the middle and the cheese is melted. Serve with your favorite chips.

2012-01-22T14:05:00.000-05:00

2012-01-22T14:01:00.000-05:00

How To Generate A Good Idea

by sammcnerney on January 20, 2012

You can find the article here.

The Strange Transformation of a Great Lakes Steam Ship

2012-01-21T08:53:00.000-05:00

I found the first 2 photos below on Shorpy.com and did some research to find more information about this ship.

The SEEANDBEE, once the largest and most costly inland steamer, began its career on the Great Lakes in 1912. The 500 feet, 6,381 gross tons, all steel ship could hold 1,500 passengers on its 4 decks. One of its features was an elegant ballroom. It was built for, and originally operated by, the Cleveland & Buffalo Transit Co., a steamship and trucking firm.

This following 2 photos were taken on November 9, 1912 when the Seeandbee was launched from dry dock in Wyandotte, Michigan.

Someone pointed out that the flatcar wheel is dated 1888. Now that's paying attention to detail.

The name of the ship was selected by contest. Seeandbee stood for C&B -- Cleveland and Buffalo -- the transportation company that owned her.

1917

On its maiden voyage it carried members of the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce to Buffalo. Regular trips began in 1913 from the E. 9th St. pier. The Seeandbee operated on a Cleveland-Buffalo route, with special cruises to additional ports such as Detroit and Chicago. It was the pride of the Cleveland and Buffalo Transit Co., and a consistent moneymaker on its summer cruises.

1919

The S.S. Seeandbee docked in Buffalo, ca. 1930. Cleveland Press Collection, CSU Archives.

A film titled "Merit Club Cruise on Board SS Seeandbee" from the National Archive can be see here.

In 1939, the liquidation of the Transit Co. began due to the firm's heavy losses in 1938. That year the Seeandbee was sold to the C&B Transit Co. of Chicago. The Seeandbee operated on a regular schedule through 1941.

In 1942 the Seeandbee was acquired by the navy and converted into the USS Wolverine. The Wolverine served as an aircraft carrier training ship in Lake Michigan during World War II and shortly thereafter was scrapped.

In Chicago Harbor, August 22, 1942

At anchor in Lake Michigan, 1943

Amazing!

History lesson from the BU Law School magazine: The Record

2012-01-21T07:35:00.000-05:00

Following the threads of a bygone dress code for women lawyers

BY VIRGINIA G. DRACHMAN SUNDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2011

Female attorneys in the 19th century agreed on appropriate court attire — except for that matter of the hat.
PHOTO: Boston University School of Law
Lelia Robinson wore a hat out of respect.
Female attorneys in the 19th century agreed on appropriate court attire — except for that matter of the hat.
PHOTO: Boston University School of Law
Lelia Robinson wore a hat out of respect.

Prev Next

Every time Lelia Robinson prepared to take a case to court, she confronted a nagging problem — what to do about her hat. A remarkably accomplished woman, Robinson graduated fourth in her law class, cum laude, in 1881, the first woman ever to graduate from Boston University School of Law. In 1882, she became the first woman to gain admission to the Massachusetts bar. Yet, despite her ability to open institutional doors to women, Robinson could not avoid the persistent question about her clothes: “Shall the woman attorney wear her hat when arguing a case or making a motion in court?” she asked her fellow female lawyers. “Or shall she remove it?”

Robinson’s query was not a frivolous matter of fashion. Rather, it was a serious concern to every 19th century woman who prepared to enter the courtroom to practice law. Social etiquette demanded that respectable women appear in public wearing hats, but professional etiquette required lawyers to remove them when they entered the courtroom. Robinson’s question about her hat transcended matters of fashion, shedding light on a dilemma that continued long after women broke the institutional barriers to the legal profession: How to balance gender with professional identity?

In an era that emphasized the virtues of gender difference, the woman lawyer of the late 19th century straddled two worlds. As a woman, her place was at home, the caretaker of domestic and family concerns. As a lawyer, her place was in the office and the courtroom, the protector of justice and freedom. As a woman, she was expected to be modest, sentimental and caring. As a lawyer, she needed to be assertive, rational and objective. At every turn, a woman lawyer had to balance these competing identities.

When she entered the courtroom, for example, a woman attorney had to wear an outfit that conveyed at once seriousness and softness, objectivity and sentimentality, professionalism and femininity. To achieve this balance, women lawyers typically wore a plain black outfit, accented by jewelry or lace. The simplicity and dark colors mirrored the suits of men, alluding to professional identification with male colleagues. The extra adornments telegraphed that women lawyers were still ladies. Belva Lockwood, the first woman admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States (in 1879), wore a gold brooch in the shape of a scissors and thimble. Clara Foltz, a pioneering woman lawyer in California, also wore a gold brooch, as well as golden butterflies attached to bands of black velvet at her wrists.

Nineteenth-century women lawyers agreed on the appropriate attire for the courtroom — except when it involved the matter of the hat. Many concurred with Robinson, who preferred to keep her hat on. “It is surely no mark of disrespect to the court for a woman to appear at the bar in her bonnet, which it is customary for her to wear in church,” Robinson insisted in 1888.

But others, like Catharine Waugh McCulloch of Rockford, Ill., disagreed. “Some seem to think that a bonnet is absolutely necessary on a woman’s head to redeem her from the curse deserved for lifting up her voice on the rostrum ... I object on principle.” Still others, like Letitia Burlingame of Joliet, Ill., rejected both sides of the argument, professing instead a woman lawyer’s right to wear a hat in court “if she prefers.”

With such diverse opinions remaining until the end of the 19th century, it was up to a younger generation of women lawyers in the 20th century to ultimately resolve the hat debate. By 1920, women lawyers had overwhelmingly given up the hat as a vestige of the Victorian ladydom of their mothers and grandmothers, agreeing with an article in the Women Lawyers Journal that declared that the hat should “be tabooed” in the courtroom. In this era — when 27 of 129 law schools admitted women, every state bar was open to women, and the suffrage amendment made them full and equal citizens — younger women adopted a new code of fashion in the courtroom that embraced the promise of gender equality.

This new dress code embodied more than a rejection of the hat. In their quest for a gender-neutral standard of attire, women lawyers urged all lawyers, men and women, to wear a robe in court. This was not an original idea. Former President William Howard Taft had already called for the robe, believing it would give all lawyers more professional respect. But feminist lawyers saw additional virtues in the robe and embraced it as a symbol of gender equality that would erase “sex consciousness” in the courtroom.

Still, amid calls for gender equality, individual women lawyers continued to find personal ways to convey their femininity in court. Some wore pearls; others strategically placed their purse, handkerchief or gloves in view of the judge and jury. But very few wore a hat, the 19th century remnant of female respectability and gender difference.

While the issue of the hat was resolved by the 1920s, questions about what constituted an appropriate dress-for-success outfit for the professional woman lingered. In the last quarter of the century, as the second wave of feminism waxed and waned, women first adopted tailored skirt suits with ties, then pantsuits to emulate men’s attire, as the clothing industry sought to meet the needs of the growing population of professional women.

More recently, a younger generation has adopted shorter, fitted skirts, in the name of gender equality. On the political stage, Hillary Clinton’s tailored pantsuits and Sarah Palin’s short skirts reveal the spectrum of contemporary professional women’s attire, while also illuminating a strong link to women lawyers of the past.

But perhaps 19th-century lawyer Margaret Wilcox of Milwaukee spoke for women of all eras, foreshadowing the diversity of outfits and colors worn by today’s female lawyers. Harking back to the natural rights language of the 18th century, she declared, “It is the inalienable right of each lady [lawyer] to follow her ‘own sweet will.’ ”

Virginia G. Drachman is the Arthur and Lenore Stern professor of American history at Tufts University and the author of “Sisters in Law: Women Lawyers in Modern American History.”

Minestrone Soup from the Brown Eyed Baker

2012-01-20T15:03:00.004-05:00

Minestrone Soup

January 19, 2012 | 36 Comments | Email | Print

Back in the day (the way-back day) when I was in college, I had a brief love affair with minestrone soup. I can’t remember my mom ever making it at home, nor do I remember having it from a can at any point, so I had already spent about 20 years on this earth without minestrone being on my radar. Enter night class. One particular semester I had a night class in a building that was on the outskirts of campus. (As outskirted as you could be up on the bluff!) I would always wander over to Fisher Hall a little early and stop at the little cafe that was nestled in the bottom floor of the building to grab something to eat before class. On a particularly chilly night when I was craving something warm I decided to try the minestrone soup. Not being a vegetable lover, I was shocked at how much I adored that little bowl of soup. I loved the warmth, the heartiness, the beans, and it made me feel at home. From that night on, the minestrone soup was my Monday night ritual before class, and I loved it each and every time. I haven’t eaten it much since college, but always think about how I need to wrangle a recipe that I love, and I’ve finally done so. And it’s every bit as wonderful as I remembered.

This is one of the simplest soups I have ever made, but it does contain one key ingredient – a piece of Parmesan cheese rind. The rind simmers away with the soup and helps to create more of a stock, with an intensified and more developed flavor than if you leave it out. I highly recommend not skipping this!

One of the best things about this recipe is that it is easily customizable to suit your tastes (and what’s currently in your refrigerator). Mix and match flavors, different vegetables, and even types of beans. Want to use kale instead of spinach? Go for it! This is a great formula for a completely customizable vegetable and bean soup.

I also highly recommend eating a bowl with a nice big chunk of homemade focaccia bread

Minestrone Soup
Yield: 6 to 8 servings
Prep Time: 20 minutes | Bake Time: 1 hour 20 minutes
2 small leeks (or 1 large), white and light green parts sliced thin crosswise (about ¾ cup)
2 medium carrots, peeled and chopped small (about ¾ cup)
2 small onions, peeled and chopped small (about ¾ cup)
2 medium stalks celery, trimmed and chopped small (about ¾ cup)
1 medium baking potato, peeled and cut into ½-inch dice (about 1¼ cups)
1 medium zucchini, trimmed and chopped medium (about 1¼ cups)
3 cups stemmed spinach leaves, cut into thin strips
1 (28-ounce) can whole tomatoes packed in juice, drained and chopped
8 cups water
1 Parmesan cheese rind, about 5 by 2 inches
1 teaspoon salt
1 (15-ounce) can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
¼ cup pesto (homemade or store-bought)
1. Bring the leeks, carrots, onion, celery, potato, zucchini, spinach, tomatoes, water, cheese rind, and salt to a boil in a large stockpot or Dutch oven. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are tender but still hold their shape, about 1 hour. Remove and discard the cheese rind.
2. Add the beans and cook just until heated through, about 5 minutes. Remove the pot from the heat. Stir in the pesto. Adjust the seasonings, adding pepper and more salt, if necessary. Serve immediately.
(Recipe adapted from The Best Soups and Stews)

Christian Conservatives and Reagan

2012-01-20T13:49:00.000-05:00

Ronald Reagan 1986

There they go again!

Click the bottom of the photo for the article. Hindsight in this case is not 20-20. History is sometimes much different from the memories of a specific time.

S****y Parents Anonymous

2012-01-20T12:45:00.000-05:00

There is a great article in Deadspin with the title below. I didn't post the entire thing because someone may object to the language in it and report me to Google as an offensive blog that needs to be closed down (it's happened before). Click below for the article.

9 Things I Learned In The Parent Encouragement Program, AKA Shitty Parents Anonymous

Reducing Waste

2012-01-20T12:38:00.002-05:00

Participating in The Big Waste on Food Network was as eye opening for me as it was to watch it. I consider myself fairly well-informed in matters of buying, selling or, most simply, eating what I buy for my restaurants and home. In short, I didn’t think there would be much to learn doing this show. Or at least that there wouldn’t be much I hadn’t already seen. I was wrong. There were small amounts of precious, expensive things wasted, like chocolate, espresso and prosciutto. There were the stunning amounts of vegetables like corn, in bulk quantity, that I was surprised to learn would never “make the cut” and have a chance to even be bought.

Here are a few things we can all think about when shopping and cooking that can help reduce the amount of food waste:

1. Don’t pick through an entire pile of tomatoes to find the biggest, most perfect one. Settle for a few of the nice, small ones on top. Moving the pile around and shifting the fruit can bruise them and increase the likelihood than people will leave those other bruised fruits behind. Same goes for peaches.

2. When buying fresh ingredients, especially fruits and vegetables, try to buy less at a time and shop for them more frequently. That will lessen the chances you will throw away food that you have already paid for. I also find when I shop for less more frequently, I am more creative and wind up with a more expansive array of dishes.

3. Sometimes ugly on the outside means more beautiful on the inside. Citrus that has some traces of black on the skin? That’s just sugar coming out of the fruit, which is a good thing. Imperfect tomatoes, especially heirlooms, often have the best flavor. Imperfect shape does not rule out perfect taste.

4. Freeze fruit like bananas or pears and defrost them to make banana bread at a later date.Pear compotes, pear jams, pear pie filling? Why not? There may not be a cooking solution that matches when your food is about to go bad. So use the freezer to buy yourself some time and avoid waste.

5. Leftovers aren’t always the most exciting or welcome meals. I like to “hide” leftovers in another form. A pot pie, vegetable soup, mixed pasta dishes — hot or cold — all give opportunities to recycle food you already have in the fridge. The food made it all the way from the field to the fridge. Why not let it take that last step and make it to your table?

6. Buy local. Support your local farmers as much as you are able. The food, because it got to you more quickly than broccoli that traveled across the country, will have a much longer shelf life after you bring it home. Most importantly, it’s also just delicious eating.

Genetically Modified Foods

2012-01-20T11:48:00.003-05:00

Copied from Slate magazine.

The Very Real Paranoia Over Genetically Modified Foods

Can your body "absorb information" from lab-engineered fruits and vegetables?

By Emily Willingham|Posted Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2012, at 1:23 PM ET

Were you among the thousands who saw last week's Atlantic piece on “The Very Real Danger of Genetically Modified Foods”? Food writer Ari LeVaux sought to use recent research findings on the biology of digesting plant materials to argue for an overhaul of regulations for genetically modified (GM) food in the United States. The scientific missteps in his article and nonexistent link between the study he cites and any specific danger from GM foods led a number of science writers to crack knuckles and get to rebutting.

Unfortunately, by the time these correctives had circulated, the Atlantic's readers had shared the original piece 11,000 times on Facebook alone. A danger that was not “very real” at all had morphed into an alleged GM time bomb, one that LeVaux asserted would “blast a major hole” in arguments for maintaining the regulatory status quo. A more careful look at the science in question instead provides an argument for having the three federal agencies with GM food oversight—the Food and Drug Administration, Environmental Protection Agency, and Department of Agriculture—retain the flexible, evidence-based framework already in place.

The bomb components came from a Cell Research paper reporting identification of tiny plant molecules in human blood. We harbor plenty of human versions of these molecules, called microRNAs or miRNAs for short, which regulate protein production. No one had ever reported finding plant miRNAs in people, until Lin Zhang and colleagues at Nanjing University looked carefully at people who had consumed ordinary cooked rice and other plant foods. According to their study, molecules specific to some of these plant foods ended up in human blood and tissues. And the plant miRNAs weren't sitting there doing nothing: In other tests, one of the types they found was shown to inhibit production of a protein that normally removes “bad” cholesterol, or LDL, from the blood.

require confirmation but open the door to interesting questions about the effects of natural dietary miRNAs on human health. Stirring in the complexities and emotions associated with GM foods, however, ignited a social-media chain reaction, and corrections couldn’t outpace the light-speed transmission of misinformation. LeVaux rewrote the piece with some fixes in place, and the new version now appears on AlterNet and at the Atlantic. (You can read the original here.)

Too bad the rapid-acting, social-media fix wasn’t more effective. LeVaux’ second try addressed some of the errors in how he described miRNAs and added some caveats about confirming results, but he retained much of his initial argument, maintaining that his critics had shot wide. As one of those critics, I demurred. In addition to stressing scientific inaccuracies, the critiques highlighted how off-target LeVaux was in trying to link the Zhang results to GM plant foods in particular, instead of all plant foods. No one has altered miRNAs in existing GM plants, so in that respect, at least, they're no different from non-GM plants.

Yet his rewrite still argues this link and still shoots wide of the study’s real implications. LeVaux focuses on “substantial equivalence,” the risk assessment tenet that if testing indicates a GM food has the same essential features as a non-GM food—the same protein profile and nutritional content, for example—then it should fall under standard food regulations. The corollary, of course, is that non-equivalence requires more testing.

LeVaux says the miRNA findings compel a framework overhaul, asserting that they reveal a way that GM foods could influence human health. This work does not show that, as it involved non-GM foods and a class of molecule that hasn’t been altered in existing GM foods. Either way, dispensing with substantial equivalence would be a mistake. Biotech innovation seems to move almost as quickly as social-media misinformation, and substantial equivalence remains a flexible framework for this breakneck pace. A creaky, detailed series of federal regulations would undoubtedly lag behind the science.

Another option, the precautionary principle, while potentially flexible, functions in a context of “what if” instead of evidence, rendering it toothless and inconsistent. The Obama administration recently applied this principle in its unprecedented override of FDA approval of over-the-counter sales of Plan B, the “morning after” pill, asserting that drug makers couldn’t “conclusively establish” its safety for 11-year-old girls. This conclusion illustrates a main fault of the principle: It doesn’t balance uncertainty against known risks, which are substantial for 11-year-olds who become pregnant.

Frameworks aside, pending further evaluation, these new findings suggest that humans and other animals have lived with ingested plant miRNAs for a long time. No evidence exists of altered miRNAs in genetically modified plants, so the GM plants that are now on the market won't affect that longstanding relationship.

In trying to link miRNAs and GM foods, LeVaux seems to confuse this type of small RNA with another kind that also regulates protein production in our cells. Some GM plants have been engineered to produce “small interfering RNA,” or siRNA. In the short-lived 1994 GM product the Flavr Savr tomato, for example, engineered siRNAs specifically blocked production of a protein that normally hastens tomato ripening.

LeVaux seeks to emphasize the dangers of one with examples of the other. Some plants have been engineered to create siRNAs or longer RNAs that silence toxin-processing genes in insect consumers. But these are perfectly matched to their insect targets, and no studies have identified any such GM plant molecules in human tissues. Further, siRNAs and miRNAs are not simply interchangeable. They can have similar effects, but cellsprocess and use them differently.

Some groups—with no industry affiliation, thus far—do research artificial miRNA technology to alter plant characteristics, although its use in crop plants remains speculative. If artificial miRNA GM foods become possible, would the Zhang data “blast a hole” in substantial equivalence? No. Substantial equivalence would dictate further testing.

Speaking of testing, LeVaux asks, “A tomato with fish genes? … That, to me, is a new plant and it should be tested. We shouldn’t have to figure out if it’s poisonous or allergenic the old fashioned way, especially in light of how new-fangled the science is.” (Next, he’ll be yelling at scientists to get off of his lawn.) But substantial equivalencedoesn’t mean “untested.” Researchers did develop a tomato that contained an inserted Arctic flounder gene to render the plant cold tolerant. But the tomato foundered in tests of its cold tolerance. Had it not failed, according to one expert review, “additional environmental and safety tests would have been conducted” to demonstrate substantial equivalence—as was done for the Flavr Savr tomato. As that review notes, all current GM products in the U.S. marketplace have undergone a full regulatory review.

Such tests aren’t full-scale clinical trials on human volunteers, but they do assess how toxic or allergenic GM foods might be in ways that are similar to nonclinical safety assessments for pharmaceuticals. In addition, thanks to technological advances in the “–omics” fields that allow comparisons of genomes, proteins, and metabolites between organisms, these tests can now incorporate comparisons of the molecular profiles of GM and non-GM versions to identify any distinctive differences that might warrant further investigation.

Largely overlooked in all of the GM alarmism are the real implications of the Zhang miRNA study. Human versions of these tiny molecules play many roles in development and disease, and now it seems that some plant miRNAs can survive our digestion and enter our bloodstream. What influence, if any, do they have on our health? That’s the question that shouldn't get lost amidst the shrapnel of LeVaux's social-media bombshell.

Bad Girl

2012-01-20T11:46:00.001-05:00

Copied from XX Factor in Slate Magazine.

Karen Santorum's Impure Youth

By Amanda Marcotte

| Posted Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2012, at 5:01 PM ET

306

Rick Santorum talks with his wife Karen Santorum

T.J. Kirkpatrick/Getty Images.

Rick and Karen Santorum really take the cake in the "do as I say, not as I do" department. Building on earlier revelations that the Santorums themselves considered abortion for health reasons while Rick Santorum worked diligently to deny that right to others is the new revelation that Karen Santorum spent most of her 20s living with her much-older boyfriend out of wedlock. Oh yeah, and that boyfriend was an outspoken abortion provider, the kind of person her husband would very much like to throw in jail.

The detail in this story that seems to be grossing people out the most is that Karen, whose last name was Garver when she was living openly as the kind of fornicator she and her husband now claim is so sinful the government should work against you, was actually delivered by her boyfriend Tom Allen when she was born in 1960. I'm from a small town, so that probably doesn't have the effect on me that it does on people who aren't used to some of the uncomfortably close romantic entanglements people can get in. That this detail captures people's attention suggests that we've become a little too inured to the hypocrisy of right wingers who carry on---and Rick Santorum is the worst---about howthe government should restrict contraception access and teach abstinence-only because sex outside of marriage is sinful and how abortion providers should be subject to criminal penalties. It's worth noting that when it comes to the black markets of the sort that conservatives wish to create around abortion, girlfriends and partners often get caught up in police stings, so if the laws the Santorums want were in place back then, it may not just have been Dr. Allen in danger but also a young Karen Garver. But even if not, since she lived with him for so long, she basically benefitted materially from "abortion money" he earned providing abortions, money that helped pay for her housing, if nothing else.

This entire story reveals why the collapse between personal belief and policy advocacy is making this country collectively stupider by the minute. The defense of the Santorums in light of Karen's past as the lover of an abortion provider is to brush it off and say people's beliefs change. And sure, she has every right to feel that her past was a mistake and to seek forgiveness from her God for her fornicating ways. The problem, of course, is that Karen and Rick Santorum want to take away the rights of others to do as they did and seek their own paths. They have every right to preach their religious dogma wherever they want. The problem is that Santorum continues to advocate for writing his and his wife's strange religious beliefs into law, even as they themselves weren't prepared as young people to pay the legal consequences for not adhering to their particular faith. It's a shame that such a fuss is being made over Karen Santorum's past. In a sane world, we'd be allowed to have our private lives be private. But since the Santorums want to strip you of your right to sexual privacy in order to have the government micromanage your sex lives, it's high time she be held to the standard she wants for you. After all, she's benefitted long enough from the freedoms that she and her husband want to take away from everyone else.

Doonesbury from last Sunday

2012-01-20T11:43:00.002-05:00

I missed this in last Sunday's paper. Their words always come back to haunt them.

Today's news (to me anyway)

2012-01-17T19:59:00.000-05:00

I'm a big fan of Bill Belichick. The Patriots looked really good against the Broncos (considering they had the 2nd worst defense in the NFL this season). This article is worth a read.

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If things keep going as they are in Arizona, they won't need schools or universities in a couple of years. They keep banning things from the curriculum. Now it's Shakespeare. Personally, I think he's been around long enough to make the cut just about everywhere. I've been wrong before. See the Wall Street Journal article here.

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For those of you who can't afford PhotoShop, there's a program out there called GIMP that will do magic on your digital photos. It's a very powerful tool and it's open-source and, best of all, it's free. Here are some tips on making it easier for you to use.

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It's a soup time of year. This delicious one is from the Amateur Gourmet and recipe can be found here.

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These are from a recipe called Green veggie pancakes. Not sure if I could handle the color too early in the morning. For those of you with an iron stomach, the recipe is here.

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This is an opinion from Sunday's NY Times about the Tea Party. I love the comments section. It seems that some people comment without reading the article.

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Another article devoted to the irrelevance of Newt Gingrich. Ya gotta laugh, look around ya!! Video here. (My apologies. As usual with Fox, you have to watch a commercial.)

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If it's not already possible, you will soon be able to gamble in every state in some way, shape or form. None pay attention to the fact that income generated is minimal to the state. It's just viewed as some sort of quick fix by state legislators who need to be a little better schooled on the subject. See the story here

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Posthumous memoir from Christopher Hitchens to be printed later this year. Also in the Atlantic, Salman Rushdie wrote a eulogy for Hitchens. Nice article if you can find it. This evening, I couldn't.

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And in case you didn't see, Mitt Romney pays less taxes than those that are left in the middle class (or any other class, but his). I'd love to pay taxes like a rich guy. Article here

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Hope your news is better......

Banana-Oat Bread

2012-01-16T14:04:00.006-05:00

Banana-Oat Bread

A great way to use bananas that are a little past prime.

Rich andmoist banana bread gets a texture boost with the aid of quick cooking oats.

1teaspoon baking powderINGREDIENTS

1teaspoon baking soda

3/4teaspoon salt

2 cupsplus 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1 cupplus 3 tablespoons quick-cooking oats

1/2 cupplus 3 tablespoons brown sugar

1/2 cup(1 stick) plus 3 tablespoons margarine or butter

1 cupmashed bananas (about 2 ripe large bananas)

1/4 cupmilk

2teaspoons vanilla extract

2 largeeggs

PREPARATION

1.Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9" by 5" loaf pan.

2. Inlarge bowl, mix baking powder, baking soda, salt, 2 cups flour, 1 cup oats, and1/2 cup packed brown sugar until blended. With pastry blender or two knivesused scissor-fashion, cut in 1/2 cup margarine or butter (1 stick) untilmixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in mashed bananas, milk, vanilla extract,and eggs just until flour is moistened. Spoon batter into pan.

3.Prepare crumb topping: In small bowl, with fork, mix 3 tablespoons flour, 3tablespoons oats, 3 tablespoons brown sugar, and 3 tablespoons margarine orbutter until blended. Sprinkle crumb topping evenly over batter.

4. Bakebread 1 hour and 10 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes outclean. Cool in pan on wire rack 10 minutes; remove from pan and finish coolingon wire rack.

Pastedfrom <http://www.thedailygreen.com/healthy-eating/recipes/banana-oat-bread-1201?src=rss>

Today's News

2012-01-16T13:53:00.000-05:00

First things first!

Finalists Announced for NYCR 2011 New York Beers of the Year Tasting

Beer of the Year will be selected at a tasting weekend over the weekend of February 10-11. Congratulations to the 10 finalists. See them here.

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Click below to read the article from Deadspin about the Joe Paterno Interview

Joe Paterno Wants Us To Believe He Has Never Heard Of "Rape And A Man." Joe Paterno Is Full Of Shit.

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Further evidence of Rick Santorum's irrelevance can be found here.

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I like the idea of Chocolate Mondays. Click here and you will too.

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Huntsman Leaves Race With Plea for Party Unity. Click here for full story.

I like the comment of Rita from California, who said, "As for his class warfare comment, he must know that the Republicans are the ones talking about class warfare. The rest of the country is talking about the increasing income gap and the shrinking middle class. Identifying a worrisome reality is not the same thing as promoting it."

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I like this quilt!

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A tutorial on exposure photography.

Might be news to some people.

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Donors Gave as Santorum Won Earmarks

He must have known this would come back to haunt him. Click here for story

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Transit Agencies Face the New Calculus of Broader Backsides click here

What was the name of that song that Queen did on this subject? Maybe this is it!!

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‘The Artist’ and ‘The Descendants’ Take Golden Globes

I should have watched to see Ricky's routine; although I read that it was rather tame compared to last year. Click here.

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And that's the way it is

More Bad News

2012-01-15T17:44:00.000-05:00

It appears to me that there are 3 factions within the Republican party who want to be in control -- and each of them think they are. Once their candidate secures the nomination, they expect the ignorant masses who presently oppose them to fall in line and back their guy. The problem is that the GOP has dropped the word "compromise" from their lexicography. I foresee that, no matter who is nominated, the party will split.

News here about Newt and Rick trying to get the evangical endorsement (what percentage of the electorate would follow that guidance?).

Go here to see how much money they're spending on tv ads when there are so many cut-backs in government services. (There are huge potholes in the PA highways left over from last winter. We contribute a large chunk of tax money that is supposed to be used to maintain the infrastructure. I guess the infrastructure is now defined as the governor's bank account.)

Here's a fun editorial you might want to read.

If you go to the www.thetimes-tribune.com/flatcorbett, you can get a copy of this photo:

This is the governor of PA. This was started by the newspaper and people are sending to the governor and other PA politicians voicing their displeasure (so far, they've gotten nothing from anyone who's pleased -- especially about the fracking). Voice your displeasure!

I still don't understand how we can let the voters from 3 small states dictate who runs for president? I doubt that the people of Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina are representative of the people of California, Ohio, New York, or Pennsylvania, the states with large numbers of electoral votes. Voice your displeasure!

There are reasons Santorum lost by a landslide in PA

2012-01-14T21:18:00.000-05:00

I see that the conservative, evangelical Christian leaders (I wonder who elected them?) have decided to back Rick Santorum in order to derail the freight train called Mitt. See details here. I guess Mitt's not the brand of "Christian" they want to see in the White House and Rick is the best thing they could come to any kind of agreement on (he is a Roman Catholic, after all). I'm pretty sure that Newt's been divorced too many times for their liking.

Anyone thinking of voting for Rick should check out his overall record of course, but specifically his earmarks when he was a senator, foundations he has founded to "help" the poor, and the hypocrisy of his personal decision concerning abortion and why he wants to deny that to anyone else in the future. I find it amusing that the GOP let him crawl out from under that rock he's been using as a hiding place.

Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania

2012-01-02T17:38:00.001-05:00

Jim Thorpe was founded as Mauch Chunk in 1918. The name was derived from the term "bear mountain" in the language of the native Lenape people, an apparent reference to a local mountain that resembled a sleeping bear. Mauch Chunk was the location of one of the trials of the Molly Maguires in 1876, which resulted in the hanging of four men found guilty of murder.

Jim Thorpe's wife Patricia was angry after his death when the government of Oklahoma would not erect a memorial to honor him. When she heard that the small Pennsylvania towns of Mauch Chunk and East Mauch Chunk were desperately seeking to attract business, she made a deal with officials. The towns bought Thorpe's remains, erected a monument to him, merged and renamed the newly united town in his honor, Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania. Thorpe had never been there. The monument site contains his tomb, two statues of him in athletic poses, and historical markers describing his life story.

Carbon County Court House

Asa Packer Mansion

Harry Packer Mansion

The church Mrs. Packer built in honor of her husband Asa.

The Train Station

Built in 1849 and situated in the heart of the National Register Historic District, the Inn at Jim Thorpe combines old world charm with modern conveniences. On our first stop in Jim Thorpe, we ate dinner here and watched a Steelers-Ravens playoff game. Needless to say, there were no Ravens fans in the pub.

The Stroh Building. Wonder if they're related to those people from Detroit.

An alley.

Dimmick Memorial Library opened on October 1, 1890. Friends of the Dimmick Memorial Library sponsor an annual Christmas cookie sale, annual fund drive and nearly weekly used book sales as well as a variety of programs in the Annex.

Katie thinks this looks much like Durbuy, Belgium. I agree.

Absinthe? She wouldn't stop.

Good place to have a reserved parking space.

Rumspringa Brewing Company

2012-01-02T14:06:00.000-05:00

Well worth a stop should you find yourself in the area. The "Two In The Bush IPA" is exquisite.

Bill's Quilt

2012-01-01T13:11:00.000-05:00

Katie made me a quilt for Christmas!!

I go around to all of these quilt shows and shops with her and I've collected material that I like (especially that with a music motif) figuring that I'll do something with it at some point. She took some of it and made the quilt shown. It's big enough for a queen size bed. I love it.

This is a queen size quilt that Katie made me for Christmas.

Center of the quilt.

Ghost Town

Bourbon Banana Bread

Make Scones for Your Honey on Valentine's Day

Exotic Animals Killed in Zanesville - October 2011

Eggtastic Breakfast Sandwich

This looks a heart attack getting ready to happen. I'll have to give it a try.

_________________________________________________

Natalie *

Three Quick Questions…and Natalie’s Answers

It’s your last meal. What do you have?

Your kitchen is burning down. What’s the one thing you grab?

Do you have a favorite cookbook?

DIY vs. Buy: Should I Make My Own Pear Liqueur?

What's Available to Buy

Why DIY?

Ingredients

Procedures

The battle for McPherson Square

Rough police tactics rout 300 protesters from their tent city in the heart of Washington

Dinner with Sean, Sarah and good friends

H.L. Mencken and the meaning of life

I've always admired H.L. Mencken's wit -- he's a cynic like me. He spells out a lot of my feelings in this letter. We must be kindred spirits. Enjoy.

Tuesday, 31 January 2012

Hammer Films

Sourdough Bread

I have a bread machine. I think I'll try this.

Quick Sourdough Bread

Ingredients

Instructions

2 Corn Bread Recipes

Recipe: Yankee Corn Bread

Ingredients

Instructions

Skillet Cornbread

Ingredients

Instructions

30 Amazing Facts About Your Brain

Useful Self Development Brain Stuff

Some Numbers To Wrap Your Brain Around

Brain Trivia

Your Brain Is Amazing

Your Brain Is a Dumbass

From the Brown Eyed Baker

Chipped Ham BBQ Sandwiches

How To Generate A Good Idea

The Strange Transformation of a Great Lakes Steam Ship

History lesson from the BU Law School magazine: The Record

Following the threads of a bygone dress code for women lawyers

PHOTO: Boston University School of Law

PHOTO: Boston University School of Law

Minestrone Soup from the Brown Eyed Baker

Minestrone Soup

Christian Conservatives and Reagan

S****y Parents Anonymous

There is a great article in Deadspin with the title below. I didn't post the entire thing because someone may object to the language in it and report me to Google as an offensive blog that needs to be closed down (it's happened before). Click below for the article.

Reducing Waste

Copied from Food Network blog.

Genetically Modified Foods

Copied from Slate magazine.

The Very Real Paranoia Over Genetically Modified Foods

Can your body "absorb information" from lab-engineered fruits and vegetables?

Bad Girl

Doonesbury from last Sunday

Today's news (to me anyway)

I'm a big fan of Bill Belichick. The Patriots looked really good against the Broncos (considering they had the 2nd worst defense in the NFL this season). This article is worth a read.

Banana-Oat Bread

Today's News

Finalists Announced for NYCR 2011 New York Beers of the Year Tasting

Beer of the Year will be selected at a tasting weekend over the weekend of February 10-11. Congratulations to the 10 finalists. See them here.

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Click below to read the article from Deadspin about the Joe Paterno Interview

Huntsman Leaves Race With Plea for Party Unity. Click here for full story.

Donors Gave as Santorum Won Earmarks

Transit Agencies Face the New Calculus of Broader Backsides click here

‘The Artist’ and ‘The Descendants’ Take Golden Globes

More Bad News

There are reasons Santorum lost by a landslide in PA

Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania

Rumspringa Brewing Company

Bill's Quilt