September 24, 2003 by s.z.

A few other items before I turn in: 1.  I'd like to thank the illustrious TBOGG for the kind mention and the link.  I'd also like to thank all of you for visiting our humble blog, and for your great comments.  We're new at this, so it's all very heady and exciting to us.  We thank you for your support. (Whatever happened to Bartyles and Jaymes anyway?  Think they ran off with Aunt Jenny to start a free-love commune in Nantucket and make Spry Wine Coolers?) 2.  There's this, taken from the Washington Post story Translator Accused of Spying : The government alleges that Halabi attempted to deliver two handwritten notes and a laptop computer with more than 180 electronic versions of letters from prisoners. Information in the notes "directly concerned intelligence gathering and planning for the United States' war against terrorists," according to the charges.  . . .Halabi is also accused in court papers of conducting unauthorized communications with prisoners "by furnishing and delivering unauthorized food, to wit: baklava pastries." You know, I was thinking that posibly the guy was just a misguided dope who had foolishly acceded to requests to deliver letters and news for the prisoners being secretly held in Guantanamo.  But then I read about that unauthorized baklava, and I knew he deserved the death penalty! 3.  What do you make of this (Fire Retardant Leaves Chemicals Behind in Women)? Tests of breast milk from mothers around the country suggest that nearly all American women have at least some level of chemical fire retardants in their bodies and that these levels are rising, according to a new study.  On the one hand, I guess this is scary news, since these chemicals are known to impair attention, learning, behavior, etc., in laboratory animals, and if they did the same thing to human fetuses, we might get a generation of hyperactive, undisciplined kids who would sit behind you on long plane rides and kick your seat.  On the other hand, it is good to know that my breasts are flame retardant. BTW, for an interesting look at how news is reported, here's the Reuters headline: Toxic Flame Retardant Found in U.S. Breast Milk, and their quote from the Flame Retardant industry: "ALB.N of Richmond, Virginia, one of the companies that makes the flame-retardant chemicals, said it was working to find out if the chemicals are dangerous. And here are the UPI versions: Fire Retardant Found in Breast Milk, and "Peter O'Toole of the Bromine Science and Environmental Forum said human effects can't be extrapolated from rodents" And AP, from a Texas paper: Breast milk of Texas Woman Has High Levels of Chemical, and "A Spokesman for the Bromine Science and Environmental Forum, an industry group, said PBDEs are safe.  'I think when you balance the two out, the benefits of fire protection far outweigh the risks,' said spokesman Peter O'Toole." So, either worry or don't, depending on the news service your paper subscribes to. 4.  Good night, and have a pleasant tomorrow. 4:26:23 AM

Magic Meat Pie Wins the Pennant! Magic Meat Pie Wins the Pennant! Gets Chosen As Regrettable Food Experiment #3 Yes, in a hotly contested election that was decided when Dave and Mary both voted twice, Magic Meat Pie has trounced its hated rival, Pineapple Parfait Cake.  And yet the pie has won a moral victory, since people like Elizabeth voted for it out of concern for my health and well-being after the rigors of Stuffed Frankfurter.  So, Pineapple Parfait gets to be Vice Regrettable Recipe, and I'll prepare it next week.  (In case you missed the press release, we're trying to capitalize on the success of the "Julie/Julia Project"(in which Julie cooked all the dishes in the Julia Childs' classic and so gained blog fame and fortune) by cooking some of the alleged food in the James Lileks classic The Gallery of Regrettable Food.  And we're letting people vote on the dish I prepare next, because we just happen to believe in a little something called AMERICA!) Now the winner will announce its plans for its term in office.  It goes a little something like this: Magic Meat Pie 2 onions, sliced 1/4 cup Spry 1 pound hamburg (THIS must be the secret ingredient that makes the pie magic--I will, of course, have to substitute Crisco for Spry, and will try using hamburger instead of hamburg, which was undoubtedly an early form of ground meat, such as ground mastodon.) 1 cup cooked carrots, diced 1 cup cooked peas 3 tablespoons flour 1/2 teaspoon salt dash of pepper 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce 2-1/2 cups boiling water 1 recipe baking power biscuits (page 39) Saute onions is 2 tablespoons Spry until yellow.  Add meat and saute until richly browned.  Add carrots and peas.  Turn into casserole [Abracadabra! Magic!] greased with Spry . . . Melt remaining 2 tablespoons of Spry; add flour, salt, pepper, and blend.  Add Worcestershire sauce and water, stirring constantly, and continue stirring and cooking until thickened . . . Pour 3/4 cup of gravy over mixture in casserole.  Reserve remaining gravy to serve with pie ... Roll biscuit dough to fit casserole and prick with fork.  Adjust dough over meat and seal edge of pie...Bake in very hot oven (450*F.) 25 to 30 minutes . . . Serves 6. I don't want to cast aspersions about lack of candor or hidden agenda, but I've never before encountered a recipe containing ellipses.  I wonder what it means . . . .but there actually IS a recipe for baking power biscuits on page 39 Baking Power Biscusts 2 cups of flour 3 teaspoons baking powder 1/2 tsp. salt 5 tablespoons Spry 2/3 cup milk (about) Sift dry ingrediants . . .Cut in Spry until mixture is fine as meal . . .Add milk, mixing until a soft dough is formed.  Knead lightly on floured board for about 20 seconds. . . .Roll to 1/2 inch thickness.  So it's not the lack of baking powder biscuits which they are trying to hide . . . but I don't like that lack of certainty regarding the milk . . .and where am I going to get a floured board? Anyway, I'll do my shopping tomorrow and will try concocting this dish tomorrow.  I'll take photos so you can share the magic.  I will even taste the stuff, but if it gives me rabies, you'll have to take me out and shoot me. Oh, and I actually did some research into Aunt Jenny.  It seems that she WAS the town gossip, and the people in the recipe book really WERE all having affairs, illegitimate babies, and amnesia.  Here's the real life story (Aunt Jenny Radio Show) : AUNT JENNY'S REAL LIFE STORIES featured the people who lived in the town of Littleton. These people had their share of happiness, sadness, romance, and the other good emotional stuff radio soap operas were famous for. When the story for the broadcast was completed, Aunt Jenny and program announcer Dan Seymour would briefly talk about the latest events in the story, then turn their attention to the recipe of the day. Of course, the recipes would vary from main dish to dessert, but they would all have one common denominator -- the services of Spry Shortening. So, when I tell you the story of Magic Meat Pie, I'll try to include some sin, suffering, and scandal.  And lots of lots of Spry, of course.   3:13:29 AM

comment []

The Good, the Bad, and the Deluded As we noted earlier, Sunday's "Dateline" interview of Bill O'Reilly concluded with Bill saying that he belonged in the Old West, a golden age when a man could gun down a low-bellied snake like Al Franken without consequences.  This dream of living in the west of 150 years ago and shooting Al is a recurring one with Bill.  For example, back in June on his radio program, he said: "See in the old west, and I woulda loved to have been in the old west, Al and I woulda just had a little, uh, a little shootout. You know?  We woulda went out, on Wilshire Avenue, and uh, six-shooters, now he's a much smaller target than I am, about four foot eleven, but he's wider, and it woulda been you know, Clint Eastwood time. I woulda had the cheroot, the serape, woulda given my squint, and I woulda put a bullet right between his head. Woulda been wrong, woulda been wrong, but it was the old west, and I would not have known any better, so I wouldn't have been held accountable." Yes, that is a nice fantasy for Bill to hold onto as he goes from talk show to talk show to plug his book (instead of Al), and is inevitably asked about his archenemy's book (instead of his own).  But whenever Bill brings up the idyllic days when men were men, women were women, and Bill was the Man With No Name (presumably, because Fox had copyrighted it), we have to wonder if Bill would actually have played the Clint Eastwood role in the REAL old west.  It is our opinion that if he wasn't the town coot (playing the Walter Brennan role, or maybe Ruth Gordon's), he'd probably have spouted his highly opinionated fair and balanced guff in the Tombstone Gazette.  A typical column might haved started: The Most Ridiculous Item of the Day: Apparently, the Army has left some Indians alive somewhere.  Now, I support our troops, but what I don't support is a lazy, hands-off approach to our national security by fat cat Washington bureaucrats.  Now, liberal pundit Horace Greeley says the Indians are entitled to these so-called "reservations," but it's obvious to anyone with common sense that a two-state solution will only lead to decades of strife, and make these "reservations" safe havens for red-skinned terrorists. Now, the point here is that Greeley has an agenda, and that liberal agenda is to pick on slavery, an institution which provides work for many immigrants who came to this country without a dollar in their pockets.  Hey, I was raised in a little house on the bad side of the prairie, and yet you don't hear ME whining about being a slave.  But Greeley and his media elite will do whatever it takes to destroy those who oppose them, like calling their opponents "Know-Nothings" -- and this hurts you as a human being.  And yet Lincoln will do nothing about it, because the famous get no protection in this country. Somebody would have inevitably called Bill on his bluster, and contradicted his claim that he won the Grand Prize at the county fair for his Bread &  Butter Pickles (he'd later claim he never said HE won, he said WE won, meaning that it was the little woman who actually produced the pickles; and besides, it was an honest mistake that he said "Grand Prize" when he meant "honorable mention").  And Bill would have told the runty, fat guy with glasses that those were fighin' words, and to meet him on Wilshire Avenue at high noon the next day.  And then, of course, Bill would have forced his employer to subcontract the gunfight for him, maybe hiring Tom Tyler and those other two guys from Stagecoach to bushwhack Franken as he rode into town. But is possible that Bill would have squinted, and would have worn a serape or some other form of shawl. 2:33:44 AM