Later On

We all love Ina Garten’s “Barefoot Contessa” cookbooks: very good recipes and very sensible outlook in general. The Eldest just pointed out this very nice anecdote in the blog CharmCityCook (One of Baltimore’s nicknames is “Charm City”):

I love having parties. It’s so much fun to get people together to share great food and drink. It doesn’t have to be fancy. For me, it’s about the people, not just what’s on the plate. Whether it’s a barbeque, dinner party or holiday soiree, I’m in. So, years ago when I saw Ina Garten’s book, Parties, I snatched it right up.

In the cookbook, she describes a terrible party she gave early on – a sort of cautionary tale of what of how not to do it. She tried to do too much and everything just fell apart. Not many people would put their mistakes out there for the world to see, so naturally I liked her right away.

She gives great advice for folks who might be new to cooking or intimidated by entertaining. For example, she recommends buying some simple hors d’ouvres like tapenade, pate, cheeses, nuts, olives, etc. Don’t make things that are too complicated and prepare as much as you can ahead of time. You should be with your guests having fun, not working in the kitchen while they’re noshing. After cooking from the Parties book, I began buying the rest of her cookbooks over the next few years.

Then, something really fun happened.

My best friend of 30 years is an architect in Paris and she often works with American clients who have homes there. She told me she was designing an apartment for Ina and her husband Jeffrey. I must admit, I was thrilled. Like, silly giddy, actually. When she came home for the holidays, she took my Parties book back to Paris and had Ina sign it for me. Oh, how I love my bestie.

Fast forward a few years: I took an amazing trip to London and Paris for my 40th birthday - the trip of a lifetime for sure. Before I left London for Paris, my friend called to say that Ina was going to be there at the same time as me and that we might have lunch with her. . .

Continue reading.

The Slant Bar razor was invented by Merkur in 1916. I have no idea of what led to it, but I like the comparison of the Scottish Maiden and the Guillotine, the latter cutting much more cleanly and efficiently—in effect the Guillotine sliced off the head in contrast to the Scottish Maiden’s chopping it off (and, quite often, not even achieving that but simply crushing the neck).

The idea may have been bruited about, because look at this array of variations on the them of a slanted razor blade. (Page is in German, but Google will translate.)

I discovered this site via this post on Wicked_Edge.

This recipe caught my eye. Ingredients:

For the dressing:

• 6 tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice
• 1 tablespoon Asian fish sauce
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil [I'll use true EVOO, of course]
• 1-1/2 tablespoons sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes, plus more if desired

For the salad:

• 1/2 pound cooked shrimp, peeled and de-veined
• 1 cup quinoa, rinsed (or pre-washed)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 red bell pepper, cored and cut into thin bite-sized strips
• 1 carrot, peeled and shredded
• 1 small cucumber, peeled, seeded and finely diced
• 2 scallions, finely chopped
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro

I think I’ll make it. Not enough greens, of course, but that’s easily fixed. I’m thinking I’ll steam a bunch of (red) dandelion greens, then drain, chop, chill, and add to the salad. Alterntely, I can take 1/4-1/2 head Napa cabbage and shred that.

I will also bulk it out by adding (in addition to the red bell pepper) a yellow bell pepper and an orange bell pepper, cut up like the red bell pepper, and also a bulb of fennel, cored and sliced thinly (on my Swiss Borner V-Slicer, for example).

With the greater bulk, this becomes four meals instead of two. See how I did that?

UPDATE: Salad has been made. Dressing used 8 Tbsp lime juice and 3 Tbsp true EVOO, and just 1 tsp sugar. I did use the red pepper flakes—just shook in some.

Salad ingredients that I used:

1 pound cooked shrimp, peeled and de-veined
1 cup quinoa, rinsed (or pre-washed), cooked (w/ 1 c water) and chilled day before
1 red bell pepper, cored and cut into thin bite-sized squares
1 orange bell pepper, cored and cut into thin bite-sized squares
1 yellow bell pepper, cored and cut into thin bite-sized squares
1/2 English cucumber, finely diced (no reason to peel or seed this type)
1 bunch scallions, finely chopped
1 bunch fresh cilantro, chopped
1 bulb fresh fennel, quartered, cored, and sliced thinly
1/2 head Napa cabbage, cored and chopped
1 can hearts of palm (salad cut), drained
2 jalapeños, chopped fine
2 Tbsp sliced almonds

Basically, as you see, I add lots of fresh vegetables to increase bulk. Now it’s four meals easily. I should have used the entire English cucumber. I’ll add the rest now. I skipped the carrot.

I’ve noticed, of course, that my own meat consumption has fallen off significantly, but then my consumption of food in general is less than it was (250 lbs then, 173 lbs now). But, even so, the proportion of my meal that is meat has gone down a lot, and I frequently eat completely meatless meals, with the protein source being tofu or tempeh or beans+rice or eggs. I’m not sure the role of fish/meat (they’re both animals, right?), but when I do include animal protein, quite often it’s fish rather than chicken, pork, beef, or lamb (the main meats I eat, though I also enjoy bison, duck, goose, and so on).

Mark Bittman in the NY Times takes a look at the diminishing amount of meat Americans eat:

Americans eat more meat than any other population in the world; about one-sixth of the total, though we’re less than one-twentieth of the population.

But that’s changing.

Until recently, almost everyone considered their dinner plate naked without a big old hunk of meat on it. (You remember “Beef: It’s What’s for Dinner,” of course. How could you forget?) And we could afford it: our production methods and the denial of their true costs have kept meat cheap beyond all credibility. (American hamburger is arguably the cheapest convenience food there is.) This, in part, is why we spend a smaller percentage of our money on food than any other country, and much of that goes toward the roughly half-pound of meat each of us eats, on average, every day.

But that’s changing, and considering the fairly steady climb in meat consumption over the last half-century, you might say the numbers are plummeting. The Department of Agriculture projects that our meat and poultry consumption will fall again this year, to about 12.2 percent less in 2012 than it was in 2007. Beef consumption has been in decline for about 20 years; the drop in chicken is even more dramatic, over the last five years or so; pork also has been steadily slipping for about five years.

Holy cow. What’s up?
It’s easy enough to round up the usual suspects, which is what a story in the Daily Livestock Report did last month. It blames the decline on growing exports, which make less meat available for Americans to buy. It blames it on ethanol, which has caused feed costs to rise, production to drop and prices to go up so producers can cover their increasing costs. It blames drought. It doesn’t blame recession, which is surprising, because that’s a factor also.

All of which makes some sense. The report then goes on to blame the federal government for “wag[ing] war on meat protein consumption” over the last 30-40 years.

Is this like the war on drugs? The war in Afghanistan? The war against cancer? Because what I see here is:

• a history of subsidies for the corn and soy that’s fed to livestock
• a nearly free pass on environmental degradation and animal abuse
• an unwillingness to meaningfully limit the use of antibiotics in animal feed
• a failure to curb the stifling power that corporate meatpackerswield over smaller ranchers
• and what amounts to a refusal — despite the advice of real, disinterested experts, true scientists in fact —  to unequivocally tell American consumers that they should be eating less meat

Or is the occasional environmental protection regulation and whisper that unlimited meat at every meal might not be ideal the equivalent of war? Is the U.S.D.A. buying $40 million worth of chicken products to reduce the surplus and raise retail prices the equivalent of war?

No. It’s not the non-existent federal War on Meat that’s making a difference. And even if availability is down, it’s not as if we’re going to the supermarket and finding empty meat cases and deli counters filled with coleslaw. The flaw in the report is that it treats American consumers as passive actors who are victims of diminishing supplies, rising costs and government bias against the meat industry. Nowhere does it mention that we’re eating less meat because we want to eat less meat.

Yet conscious decisions are being made by consumers. . .

Continue reading.

Chris Hedges, who I found quite impressive in this (lengthy) video I blogged earlier, here is more succinct but equally interesting in comparing the US Occupy Wall Street movement with popular uprisings in other countries in which the power structure was corrupt, mendacious, greedy, and exploitative. I came across this clip from a post Zaine Ridling made on Google+ and thought more should see it. It’s less than 7 minutes.

For some reason, reporters in the US seem to restrict the word “terrorist” to cases in which the miscreant’s skin color is brown (preferably) or at least not white. If a person who kills random civilians in support of his ideology happens to be white, he is never called a “terrorist,” but simply some sort of criminal—in this case, a “serial bomber.” While I suppose it’s a good thing to be so careful about injuring the feelings of white folk, I really do think it is not beyond the bounds of good practice to refer to terrorists as “terrorists” (and, of course, to alleged terrorists as “alleged terrorst”, though in this case the allegation seems pretty solid).

At the link above, an article by Nick Martin in TPM Muckraker, which begins:

In a small trailer park in Catoosa, Okla., in 2005, an aging white supremacist made a startling claim to a woman he had met only earlier that day.

He told her he was a serial bomber.

According to federal court records, Dennis Mahon, was thumbing through an album of old pictures for the woman, showing off his Ku Klux Klan robe and other artifacts of his life when he began to tick off a list of places he claimed to have bombed since the early 1980s.

There was an abortion clinic, a Jewish community center and offices of the IRS and immigration authorities. He told the woman he liked to use a mixture of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil. He said he added powdered sugar to the mix for an extra bang. He would set off the bombs at 2 a.m., he said, so that no one was hurt but a message was still sent.

What Mahon didn’t know was that the woman he was bragging to was an informant working for federal law enforcement. And the trailer she was staying in was rigged with hidden cameras and microphones to catch every word.

Today, the former KKK leader and his twin brother, Daniel, are scheduled to go on trial in federal court in Phoenix, thanks to the conversations they had with that informant, Rebecca Williams, over four years. . .

Continue reading.

UPDATE: Sort of humorous follow-up: terrorist leader warns his followers to beware of women. (That seems unnecessarily specific: he is really warning them to beware of law-abiding people.)

I play multiple games at a time via DragonGoServer.net. You make a move and go on to other things. After a certain amount of time, if your opponent has not moved, DragonGoServer will send an email to him/her to say that you’ve moved. Etc. And then I saw this FREE app in the App Store for my MacBook:

It works like a charm. Maybe I’ll start more games there now.

I suppose it’s possible that some of my readers have not yet learned Go. If you have an iPad, let me point out SmartGo Kifu, a very attractive program that has me leaning toward iPad acquisition at some distant point.

It’s good to learn from a player, who can help explain what’s going on. The first 10 games are a confused mystery for most players, who can’t tell what’s happening at all. But if you persist, I promise you a wonderful game experience. The key thing, other than the minimalist beauties of the game itself, is the handicapping system, that allows for very close contests between players of very different abilities—and the handicapping system does not in any way detract from the play or pleasure of the game. In practice, this means that a couple who have very different abilities can play close and enjoyable games with each other, or a parent and child can play exciting, close contests.

The handicap is that the weaker player starts with more stones on the board (i.e., it’s as if he had already played several stones, so is sort of ahead). If the weaker player loses three games in a row, he gets an additional handicap stone in subsequent games; if he wins three games in a row, he gets one fewer handicap stones in subsequent games. Each stone turns out to be worth about 10 score points in the final outcome, so games (generally) are decided by fewer than 10 points: close games.

Let me direct you to the American Go Association for further information and links. On DragonGoServer.net, I am “Leisureguy” and I’d enjoy a game if you want.

Glenn Greenwald takes a look at US practices and progressive attitudes in a column well worth reading a contemplating: the US is moving in a bad direction. Death squads never turn out well: it seems like a wonderful idea—go around and kill people you dislike—but it inevitably ends in tears. Read this column and think about it:

Several days ago I referenced a controversy that arose in 2007 when the law professor and right-wing blogger Glenn “Instapundit” Reynolds criticized President Bush for not doing enough to stop Iran’s nuclear program and then advocated that the U.S. respond by murdering that nation’s religious leaders and nuclear scientists. “We should be responding quietly, killing radical mullahs and Iranian atomic scientists . . . ,” he argued. The backlash against Reynolds’ suggestion was intense, especially among progressive writers.

Back then, I wrote about Reynolds’ suggestion several times, but I was far from alone. Law Professor Paul Campos wrote a column in the Rocky Mountain News denouncing Reynolds for publicly advocating “murder,” which, he pointed out, is exactly what this would be given that the U.S. is not at war with Iran (he went on to suggest that targeting civilian religious leaders and scientists would still be murder even if the U.S. were at war with Iran); Campos added: “government-sponsored assassinations of the sort Reynolds is advocating are expressly and unambiguously prohibited by the laws of the United States.” Law Professor Kevin Jon Heller documented with absolute clarity that such assassinations would be illegal in the absence of a formal war.

But the angriest reactions came from progressive bloggers, who widely denounced Reynolds as “contemptible” for suggesting this; one progressive writer, Lindsay Beyerstein, was horrified that one could even suggest such a thing, explaining that she ”despair[s] for our society when it’s necessary to supply a rigorous analytical exposition of why our government shouldn’t have scientists and religious leaders whacked.” Scott Lemieux railed against what he called Reynolds’ “kooky scheme for illegal death squads” as “crackpot,” “dumb” and “nuttier than a Planters factory.” And Kevin Drum, then ofWashington Monthly, went the furthest of all — in a post he entitled “Terrorism” — branding the killing of Iran’s scientists as “Terrorism”:

I imagine a lot of people agree with [Reynolds], but his recommendation really demonstrates the moral knot caused by George Bush’s insistence that we’re fighting a “war on terror.” After all, killing civilian scientists and civilian leaders, even if you do it quietly, is unquestionably terrorism. That’s certainly what we’d consider it if Hezbollah fighters tried to kill cabinet undersecretaries and planted bombs at the homes of Los Alamos engineers.

If you think Iran is a mortal enemy that needs to be dealt with via military force, you can certainly make that case. But if you’re going to claim that terrorism is a barbaric tactic that has to be stamped out, you can hardly endorse its use by the United States just because it’s convenient in this particular case.

What is most amazing about all this is that, a mere three years later, some combination of Israel and the U.S. are doing exactly that which Reynolds recommended. Numerous Iranian nuclear scientists are indeed being murdered.

In January, 2010, a remote-controlled bomb attached to a motorcyclekilled Masoud Ali Mohammadi, 50, who “taught neutron physics at Tehran University.” In November, 2010, two separate car bombs exploded within minutes of each other on the same day, one that killed nuclear scientist Majid Shahriar and wounded his wife, and the other which wounded another nuclear scientist, Fereidoun Abbasi, along with his wife. Then, in July of last year, Darioush Rezaei, 35, was shot dead and his wife was wounded by two gunmen firing from motorcycles outside of their daughter’s kindergarten; Rezaei “did his doctorate in neutron transport – which lies at the heart of nuclear chain reactions in reactors and bombs” and “was a member of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, the country’s official atomic energy commission.”

And now, yet another Iranian scientist has been killed. According to Iranian media, a 32-year-old university professor, Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan, died when an assailant riding on a motorcycle attached a magnetic bomb to his car, which then detonated and killed him. According to The Washington Post‘s Thomas Erdbrink, a conservative news outlet in Iran reported that the young scientist “was believed to be involved in procuring materials for Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facility in Natanz.”

What’s most remarkable here is to compare the boisterous, furious denunciations of the mere suggestion by a blogger on the Internet that Iranian scientists be killed, versus the relative silence in the face of its actually being done in real life, now that the corpses of murdered Iranian scientists are beginning to pile up. Does anyone doubt that some combination of the two nations completely obsessed with Iran’s nuclear program — Israel and the U.S. — are responsible? (U.S. officials deny involvement while pointing the finger at Israel, whose officials will not comment but “smile” when asked; the CIA has “targeted” Iran’s scientists in the past, several of whom have disappeared only to end up in U.S. custody, including one who “resurfaced in the United States after defecting to the CIA in return for a large sum of money”). At the very least, there has been no denunciation from any Obama officials of whoever it might be carrying out such acts. . .

Continue reading.

The obvious answer is probably the right one: They know it’s a scummy, unethical practice, so they want to hide it so they can do it anyway. Steven Rosenfeld has a good write-up:

A executive order requiring that federal contractors disclose their electoral spending—by top officers and as corporations—is being reconsidered by the White House despite stiff opposition from the business lobby after it was first proposed last spring, according to civil rights attorneys working on the issue.

“There’s a lot of movement at the White House,” said Craig Holman, government affairs lobbyist for Public Citizen. “I just had a meeting at the White House counsel’s office, trying to encourage them to move forward with the executive order. They have the perfect window of opportunity to get the executive order done.”

“It’s simple—any company that is paid with taxpayer dollars should be required to disclose political contributions,” said Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-California, who has pushed for the White House to issue the order. “With public dollars come public responsibilities, and I hope President Obama will issue his executive order right away.”

The order, if issued, would likely be the only campaign finance initiative to emerge from Washington this year as nothing is expected from Congress. It would take effect after the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council adopts new disclosure rules. That could come as the 2012 election season moves beyond the primaries and offer a new way to see who is behind the newest independent groups spending millions on political attack ads.

“Most of the major corporate players are also government contractors,” Holman said. “So if we get this executive order approved, we will get a comprehensive picture of how corporations are spending money in elections.”

Spending on federal contracts was $541 billion in 2010, which was about 4 percent of the gross domestic product, according to the Congressional Research Service, and almost 15 percent of the federal budget. The top 100 contractors are some of America’s biggest firms, and include support services for the military overseas, weapons makers, computer companies, telecommunication firms and other service providers. Companies that could fall under the disclosure order employ about 22 percent of the domestic workforce, CRS said.

The proposed executive order emerged last April, where it swiftly drew condemnation from some of Washington’s biggest business lobbies, including the Professional Services Council, the Aerospace Industries Association and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Almost immediately, Republicans in the House and Senate began adding amendments to appropriations bills prohibiting federal agencies from collecting the political contribution information as part of the procurement process. . .

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Several members of Monty Python got their start on TV doing skits for the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band. As Eric Idle points out, the band was more or less a Dada band, in fact. I was telling The Wife about the band, and it turned out that she had not heard of them! I was astonished. Everyone should know the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band (sometimes called “Bonzo Dog Band”, but I like the full name). I mentioned one of their hits, insofar as they had hits, “Death Cab for Cutie,” which she knew only as a band name. With no further ado:

Watch this one. Extremely good, though I wonder whether those on the Right will understand. Bonus points for excellent Woody Allen interpretation.

Even big cats like it:

Explanation here, though the explanation seems lacking.

The English Shaving Company is the home of Edwin Jagger products, though they do offer products from other manufacturers and are a complete shaving store. Take a look: free shipping, even on international orders, until 8 February (and after that it’s too late for Valentine’s Day anyway ). Note that if you live abroad, you pay the price without the V.A.T.

The Edwin Jagger DE8x series of razors are ideal beginner razors. Keep that in mind.

I have no relationship with this company other than as a satisfied customer and occasional gadfly (about their Web site, which I think needs work).

Last night I was doing a little meal planning, and I realized that I knew exactly what meals I had on hand, and exactly what to buy for the next.

Some time back I realized that I could “count meals” on hand simply by counting how many 4-oz portions of protein I had: an 8-oz pork chop and 8 oz of shrimp = four meals. That realization was useful because it prevented me from loading up on protein just because it looked good: I don’t want so much on hand I can’t eat it before it goes over.

You’ll recall the kale, potato, and pork chop grub I fixed a couple of days ago: the pork chop was 11 oz, so almost 3 portions, but I counted it as two and used half a pound of baby potatoes, figuring that also for two portions. Then one bunch of red kale and lots of veg to bulk it out, with 2 tsp of oil added for the initial sauté. That made four meals, so my portions of protein and starch were somewhat skimpy, but OTOH, I seem to need somewhat less food than I thought, and I’m also trying to get back to 170 lbs from my recent high of 184. (This morning: 173.0.)

So last night, after I finished kale, potato, and pork, I was thinking about what to get. In the fridge I have two bunches scallions, 3-4 jalapeños, and 3 little wads of slivered dried tomatoes as meal fodder. I also have leftover swordfish stew, and looking at the quantity (measuring it by the bowl I use for meals), that will take care of lunch and dinner today, so I don’t have to go to the store until tomorrow. Tomorrow morning is possible, but cleaning ladies will be here, so going to store in time to cook lunch? Probably not. So that gives me a good excuse for a sushi lunch, which I enjoy, and then shop for dinner.

The next thing I realized was that I knew exactly what to buy. First stop would be produce, to pick up greens (the core of the meal) and vegetables (to bulk it up). I will look to see what looks best, and I generally look for kale (red if possible), collards, chard (red if possible), dandelion greens, mustard greens, or cabbage (Napa, Savoy, or red), roughly in that order (which is roughly the order of nutritive value). Other possibilities are broccolini and baby broccoli.

Once I have the greens in hand, I think about the protein. I’m thinking pork again: that was quite good, and a boneless pork chop cooks well. I’ll try for Chanterelles again, though they were out last time. The scallions will go in, along with the rest of the shallots I got earlier. The rest of the vegetables will be whatever appeals, and the starch? Black rice or red rice, I think, though quinoa is possible.

Really, with the meal skeleton, putting together a batch of grub is quite easy. Each batch seems to last 3-4 meals. The key is to focus on the bunch of greens and build from there.

Terrific shave, and the Mighty Midget steps out for his star turn. I’ve been making lather with this guy for a week or so, and I decided it was time for a real shave. Now I don’t know what you expect from a $6 brush, but if it’s an Omega Boar, my expectations are pretty high, and the Mighty Midget did not disappoint: very good lather quickly achieved, but of course it was from a shaving cream—and a pretty good one: Giovanni Arbate’s Tryphon brand of English Lavender, which I like very much because it lacks a harsh note typically found in English lavenders.

The iKon H2O holds a Treet Black Beauty (carbon-steel) blade of two or three uses, still going strong—but I do rinse the razor’s head, including the blade, in 99% rubbing alcohol at the end of the shave, so the blade ends up perfectly dry and doesn’t rust, something carbon-steel blades are prone to do.

A dab of Castle Forbes Lavender aftershave balm, and I’m good to go. Pilates today, always something to look forward to.