The Meaning of Life, From a Movie

"And when I run I feel His pleasure."

-- Eric Liddell, Chariots of Fire, 1981

Yo Quiero Horsey Taco?

Uh oh. There's somethin' funny goin' on here, Lucy.

Story here.

The Swedish Chef Weighs In On The Ikea Meatball Flap

"So, de beency bouncy burger is a horsey, eh?"

"The Woods Are Lovely, Dark And Deep"

Swedish Meatballs At Ikea Found To Contain Horse Meat, Chef Issues Statement

According to the Borkified story from The Associated Press, here:

"Swedish foornitoore-a gioont Ikea wes droon into Ioorope-a's widening food lebeling scoondel Mondey is uoothorities seid zeey hed detected horse-a meet in frozee-a meetbells lebeled is beeff und pork und sold in 13 cooontries icross zee-a continent. Bork Bork Bork!"

The Swedish Chef was unavailable for comment but said through a spokesman:

"Whee-a I meke-a Swedish meetbells, I ilweys teke-a cere-a to idd a little-a ixtra horsemeet to zee-a mixtoore-a oon speciel ooccesions like-a zee-a Kentoocky Derby. Bork Bork Bork! Meetbells wit 25% horse-a meet reelly get iferyone-a in zee-a proper mood for zee-a rece-a, und iferyone-a who hes tried zeem lofes zeem so mooch zeey ilweys isk zee-a next yeer for my Swedish Qooerter Horse-a Meetbells by neme-a! Horse Horse Horse!"

(video here)

Quarter-Horse Burgers: 25% Less Beef Than Our Regular Brand!

"The sample of one brand . . . was more than a quarter horse", says the story here:

The scandal began in Ireland in mid-January when the country . . . announced the results of its first-ever DNA tests on beef products. It tested frozen beef burgers taken from store shelves and found that more than a third of brands at five supermarkets contained at least a trace of horse. The sample of one brand sold by British supermarket kingpin Tesco was more than a quarter horse.

My Current Super Foods Menu

Monday--Burritos (homemade pinto beans, onions, and saved bacon fat from uncured bacon, ground turkey, homemade Mexican seasonings, in an Azteca brand flour tortilla with extra sharp cheddar cheese and fresh toppings including homemade guacamole, black olives, salsa, green onion and chopped spinach)

Tuesday--Basil Pesto Sockeye Pie (canned wild sockeye salmon, eggs, homegrown tomato sauce, homemade basil pesto sauce, rolled oats) with a green salad of romaine lettuce and spinach with a lemon-evoo dressing

Wednesday--Italian pasta with homemade hot Italian turkey sausage, homemade tomato sauce, grated Pecorino Romano cheese and steamed green beans or baby broccoli or a romaine-spinach salad

Thursday--One of two flexible nights in the week like Sunday, but often curry night, usually leftover poultry, butter, garlic, Penzeys curry powder, canned coconut milk, flaked coconut, dried cranberries, diced Fuji apples and chopped almonds served over Jasmine rice with a salad on the side, or Italian meatloaf made with ground turkey, rapini and seasonings, or baked chicken with rice and broccoli

Friday--Filet of something from the sea, these days baked skin-on steelhead trout with lemon pepper, Jasmine rice and a steamed vegetable like baby broccoli or green beans, or a curried salmon-rice cake with a fruit sauce, or sockeye pie leftovers

Saturday--Napoli style pizza baked in cast iron with homemade basil pesto sauce, homemade tomato sauce, mozzarella, and fresh roma tomato slices, with a fresh salad

Sunday--Charcoal Grill Day: usually hamburgers ground at home from a single piece of Angus chuck served with all the toppings desired on a potato bun and steamed green petite peas with butter, otherwise grilled marinated Otto's chicken (locally grown) with red potatoes baked in the oven, or a stir fry in the wok, or pasta carbonara

Luncheon is usually a homemade barley-lentil soup using homemade chicken broth with some homemade buttered toast, or leftovers like a burrito, and an apple on the side with a square of 70% cocoa chocolate to finish, or a can of Norwegian bristling sardines on rye crackers with a fresh pear

Breakfast is usually stove-top espresso with 2% milk steamed, a hardboiled egg or a fried egg with toast and jam, and a fresh orange, or a blueberry-banana smoothie with homemade yogurt, coconut milk, cinnamon and ground flaxseed meal, or whole oatmeal with berries and walnuts

Wine, especially on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

Purists will revolt as purists do, but life is for the enjoying.

I reckon so: Sometimes happiness is paying later

Granny Hawkins: "You can pay me when you see me again, Josey Wales." 

"Don't Piss Down My Back And Tell Me It's Rainin'"

Fletcher in The Outlaw Josey Wales, 1976. Here.

Michelle Obama's New Weight Loss Plan For 2013

For breakfast . . .

For lunch . . .

For dinner . . .

Wild Alaskan Sockeye Salmon In The Can, By Meijer

The price of this canned salmon moderated recently for some reason after spiking up to over $6 per can, so I bought a dozen cans when it went on sale for under $5, after the price adjustment.

I figure I paid about $3.80 per pound, which these days is pretty darn cheap for wild salmon.

Royal Basmati Rice, My White Rice Of Choice

Available at Sam's Club.

Curried Basmati Salmon Cakes With Apricot Sauce

Of all the salmon cakes I've made, I like these the best.

The reason is simple. They are lighter and crispier than the cakes I make with whole oats, oat bran, bread crumbs and the like.

It's always laudable to combine as many healthy ingredients into one recipe as you can, but when the result is better with slightly fewer of those good things and which actually makes you prepare and eat the recipe more often, I say go for it.

Wild salmon is something you should eat as often as possible instead of red meats in order to improve your overall health, and I think this recipe will help you do that and add an important ingredient at the same time which we should all eat more often for health reasons, namely, curry powder, a powerful anti-inflammatory.

Curried Basmati Salmon Cakes With Apricot Sauce

1 egg beaten in a large bowl

1 T curry powder of your choosing

1 14.75 oz can wild Alaskan sockeye salmon, drained

1 cup already prepared white Royal Basmati rice from the foothills of the Himalayas, cooled

.5 cup sweetened coconut flakes

1. After you beat the egg in a large bowl, whisk in the curry powder.

2. Add the drained salmon and mash together with a potato masher.

3. Stir in the basmati rice and the flaked coconut, combining gently with the masher until thoroughly mixed.

4. Heat a generous amount of sesame or canola oil in a porcelainized dutch oven, such as a Le Creuset oval 3 quart.

5. Form the cakes using a smallish half inch deep lid from some container or other, pressing the mixture into the lid until firm. I use a rubber lid from a broken Leifheit food chopper I saved. It releases the cakes perfectly. Using it, I make seven patties from the ingredients.

6. Fry the cakes over medium high heat two minutes on a side. Use a slotted silicone spatula to lift and drain the cakes as you remove them, and keep on a serving plate in a warm oven.

Apricot Sauce

4 T salted butter

6 T best apricot jam

2 T fresh lemon juice

1. Melt the butter in a sauce pan over low heat.

2. Stir in the apricot jam and lemon juice at medium heat.

3. Cook and stir until thoroughly combined and slightly thickened and remove from heat.

4. Top each cake with some sauce and serve immediately with some petite steamed sweet peas, or a crisp green lettuce salad on the side.

Wunderbar! 

Eric Hoffer: "The Individual Cannot Change"

"The individual has not changed. The individual cannot change. And maybe that's what we need. We have to return to the individual: to the genuine individual who knows that life is brief, that the joys are few, that what matters most in this universe is to have somebody to love and somebody who loves you. We are in an enormous waste land and it's the individual who has to confront all these things by himself. That has been the one thing closest to my understanding."

-- Eric Hoffer, 1974, quoted in ERIC HOFFER: THE LONGSHOREMAN PHILOSOPHER by Thomas Bethell (Hoover Institution Press, 2011), p. 253 

Denmark Abolishes Butter Tax

So reports AFP here:

"[T]he measure was costly and failed to change Danes' eating habits."

Arsenic In US Rice Is Residual Pesticide From Previous Cotton Production

sulfur in garlic scavenges arsenic

So reports CBS News, here:

The arsenic enters into the rice when it is grown, according to Dr. Philip Landrigan, a pediatrician at New York's Mount Sinai School of Medicine. He explained the rice with the highest levels of arsenic is from Texas and Louisiana, and along the Gulf coast where fields were used to grow cotton a century ago.

"When there was cotton there they had to treat the cotton with arsenic pesticides to control the bowl weevil," he said. "Now a century later, that arsenic is still in the soil, the rice is very effective at pulling it out of the soil in and it concentrates in the rice."

Arsenic causes lung, skin and bladder cancer, Landrigan said. He added that arsenic is also very harmful to babies' brain development. If a baby is exposed to arsenic in the womb because the mother is eating arsenic or if a baby ingests arsenic in the first months of life in cereal, rice milk or other food, the arsenic could interfere with brain development, reduce the child's intelligence, and cause behavioral problems.

Choose Basmati Rice From India To Reduce Arsenic Exposure

available at Sam's Club

So reports The Chicago Tribune, here:

"Choose aromatic rices. For those who are already fans of Indian basmati or Thai jasmine rices, the news is not so bad. According to the hundreds of recently released test results, aromatic rice varieties show the lowest levels of inorganic arsenic. Imported basmati and jasmine rices showed about half to one-eighth the level of arsenic as regular rices grown in the Southern U.S."

Some Rise By Sin, And Some By Virtue Fall

Well, heaven forgive him! and forgive us all!

Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall:

Some run from brakes of ice, and answer none:

And some condemned for a fault alone.

-- Escalus, William Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, Act 2, Scene 1

Johnsonville Brats Give Me A Headache

Johnsonville bratwurst gives me a headache.

The reason? Johnsonville brats are made with MSG (monosodium glutamate), evidently to help preserve the product for national distribution.

Back in the day in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, we never bought Johnsonville, and rarely many of the other local brands available in Sheboygan. We bought a smaller brat available from Luedke's Meat Market, which started way back in 1917 if my information is correct. It was our meat market of choice for sausages of all kinds in the 1960s and beyond, including Sommer Sausage, mit oder mitout (with or without garlic -- a little Sheboyganese German-American lingo there). The brat fit perfectly in half a semel roll, a light airy hard roll I've never seen anywhere else. The Luedke brat was also preferred because it was NOT a pure pork brat, but a pork and beef mixture. Better flavor and texture.

At any rate, I've found a grocery store brand brat without MSG for tonight's nod to Oktoberfest, at which I'll be drinking . . . Bud Light Platinum!

Sie Lebe Hoch!

What's The Difference Between A Norwegian Introvert And A Norwegian Extrovert?

 

 

When a Norwegian introvert talks to you, he stares at his shoes.

When a Norwegian extrovert talks to you, he stares at your shoes.

h/t Tim

(image source)

Dinosaur. It's What's For Dinner.

I've Changed My Mind About Canned Tomatoes And Switched To San Marzanos

For quite some time, my standard brand of canned tomatoes has been Dei Fratelli. But I must say that compared to the ones we grow ourselves, they're always a let down. And one thing I haven't mentioned is that the cans have a white lining which some people object to out of fear that the acid in the tomatoes reacts with that and leaches something harmful into the contents of the can. Count me skeptical on that score. No company is going to risk their reputation without having looked into that. Besides, that liner has to cost extra to apply to the can. Why bother if they knew it was also harmful?

That said, what it really comes down to is the taste, and as the price of Dei Fratelli has climbed steeply, with lots of other things on the supermarket shelf, I've decided to get reacquainted with the Italian food lover's tomato of choice, the San Marzano. Since the retail price on Dei Fratelli has climbed to $1.99 in my area, paying the higher price for the San Marzano becomes more justifiable when you realize once again just how much more flavor the San Marzano possesses.

When I lived in Chicago and ran out of my own home grown, I had at least two Italian grocers within five miles of my house where I could always get the genuine article, and the major supermarkets often carried the same just to compete. Living as I do now in "Mudflap Meadows" Michigan, the options have been less numerous and the prices more out of reach. I saw a can of Cento San Marzanos the other day at a more upscale grocer for nearly $6 for the 28oz. can. Outrageous!

It turns out Meijer stores carry Bella Terra Organic San Marzanos for $3.79. After I prepared a batch of those I went back for more only to find Meijer has its own store brand of San Marzanos suddenly, right next to the Bella Terra on the bottom shelf. They are just as good, in my opinion. Even better, they were on sale for $2.99 a can.

Compared to Dei Fratelli, the San Marzano cooks up sweeter and less sharp, with a much more robust tomato flavor. It almost seems the Dei Fratelli has a more metallic quality by comparison, which must be the acidity. It's interesting how mellow the San Marzanos are, coming as they do in old fashioned unlined tin cans.

As always, I fill the bottom of a heavy sauce pan with extra virgin olive oil and heat it on medium heat for a couple of minutes. Then I add the contents of two 28oz. cans of tomatoes and bring them to a boil, and then after a stir I put on the lid and reduce the heat to lowest for one hour, stirring every twenty minutes. At the forty minute mark I add six cloves of crushed, chopped or pressed fresh garlic.

After the hour is up, I use my stainless steel potato masher to crush the tomatoes thoroughly and make a uniform thick consistency. I remove the lid and let the sauce cool for freezing in one cup servings. This also permits a little bit of evaporation to help thicken up the sauce.

Life is just too short to eat bad sauce. So don't!

Larry Norman: Sittin' in my kitch'n

Maybe the most affecting performance he ever gave. Wouldn't have been nearly the same without the choir, though, imho.

See it here.

The Sidekicks To The Super Foods Which You Can Incorporate At Will

almonds
AMARANTH
artichokes
ARUGULA
asparagus
BARLEY
bay leaves
BUCKWHEAT
bulgur wheat
BOYSENBERRIES
bok choy
BLACKBERRIES
broccoflower
BRUSSELS SPROUTS
sea bass
CASHEWS
carrots
CANOLA OIL
cauliflower
RED & GREEN CABBAGE
chives
SWISS CHARD
clams
CUMIN
currants
CHERRIES
collards
CRANBERRIES
cloves
COUSCOUS
yellow corn
SKINLESS CHICKEN BREAST
daikon root
EDAMAME
purple grapes
GRAPEFRUIT
guavas
HERRING
hazelnuts
ALASKAN HALIBUT
kale
KUMQUATS
kamut
KEFIR
kohlrabi
LEEKS
lemons
LIMES
romaine lettuce
LIVERWORT
miso
MILLET
mustard greens
MACADAMIA NUTS
oregano
OYSTERS
papayas
ORANGE BELL PEPPERS
pineapple
PEARS
sweet potatoes
PLUMS
pistachios
PUMPKIN SEEDS
peanuts
PECANS
Japanese persimmons
QUINOA
rye
WILD RICE
brown rice
RUTABAGA
raspberries
SCALLIONS
shallots
SARDINES
sesame seeds
SUNFLOWER SEEDS
Butternut squash
SPELT
seaweed
SOY MILK soy yogurt
SOY NUTS
strawberries
THYME
tangerines
TURMERIC
triticale
TEMPEH
turnips (& greens)
TOFU
canned Albacore tuna
TROUT
watercress
WATERMELON
wasabi
WHEAT

I Believe In Love

Video here.

1966 Volvo Nears 3 Millioneth Mile

Tom and Judy had two, one red, one white. That's all over now.

Video here.

"Give Me My Personality!"

I.e. the moustache, which Field Marshall Herring (Curly) has just torn off his upper lip!

I'll Never Heil Again, 1941 (here)

Grapes, Other Crops, Threatened By 2,4-D Herbicide Used On Engineered Corn

"David Simmons, an Indiana farmer who grows corn and soybeans but also runs a vineyard and winery, says his young grapevines have suffered significant damage from drifting 2,4-D applications at neighboring farms, forcing him to fight to recover damage claims from fellow farmers' insurance carriers."

Read the full story here at CNBC.com.

The Light of Eternal Mind

"Did he speak as a man?"

"He is not flesh, but spirit, the light of Eternal Mind. And I know that his light is in every man."















(1956)

True Poetry Frees Us From Burdens By Moderating Feelings

"True poetry announces itself thus, that, as a worldly gospel, it can by internal cheerfulness and external comfort free us from the earthly burdens which press upon us. ... The most lively, as well as the most serious works, have the same aim of moderating both pleasure and pain by a felicitous intellectual form."

-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Autobiography, tr. John Oxenford (1891), Book 13

Beware! Quackery Lives . . . in the Cult of Chiropractic

The quacks of chiropractic are still out there, with their doctrines of innate intelligence and subluxation. Doubters will not be accepted as patients as communicants. The chiropractors do not claim to cure any disease, but commitment is required up front! 12-18 months! 6 months! OK, 10-12 weeks, but that's the minimum. Because subluxations reassert themselves within 24-48 hours of every adjustment, you are nothing but a human ATM machine for the back-cracker. They operate x-ray machines but have never heard of microsieverts, or millirems. Before you realize who they really are, they already have some of your money.

Beware!

“It is the position of the medical profession that chiropractic is an unscientific cult whose practitioners lack the necessary training and background to diagnose and treat human disease. Chiropractic constitutes a hazard to rational health care in the United States because of its substandard and unscientific education of its practitioners and their rigid adherence to an irrational, unscientific approach to disease causation.”

-- AMA House of Delegates, 1966 (seen here)

The Joke of the Day: I Quit Drinking!

Wine.












This morning.

Natural Radiation in Salmon

Bananas have 3.5 pCi/g, or 525 pCi per 150 gram banana, enough to alarm a radiation monitor. One per day would give you 36 microSieverts per year.

In America from all sources we get about 6,200 microSieverts per year.

Salmon has 20.0 pCi/g, nearly 6 times as much. A 150 gram piece of salmon will thus emit 3,000 pCi of radiation, a little over 200 microSieverts per year if you ate that much everyday.

Naturally!

Why I'm Still Not Worried About Radioactive Wild Salmon From Alaska

From an excellent blog post "Radiation Misinformation" by Jack Phillips from 10 February 2012 here:

[S]almon have always been radioactive because they contain radioactive potassium just like we do. Have they become more radioactive as the result of the release of 26 billion Becquerel (Bq) into the Pacific Ocean as reported by Tepco?  Unlikely when you consider that this is less than one Curie (Ci) of radioactivity and the oceans contain over 400 billion Ci of radioactivity, 380 from Potassium, 87 from rubidium and 1 from Uranium 238.

Keep On Sucking Until You Do Succeed

Curley: "If at first you don't succeed, keep on sucking until you do succeed."

The Three Stooges in Movie Maniacs, 1935 (here)

Same Crummy Breakfast, Different Day

'I say we take off and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.'

-- Ripley, Aliens, 1986

You Say It Best When You Say Nothing At All

"A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table, than when his wife talks Greek."

-- Samuel Johnson

Massive Oyster Die-Off in Upper Chesapeake Thought to be Storm Related

The recent hurricane and tropical storm caused more fresh water than the oysters can tolerate into the upper region of the once oyster-rich waterway.

Read about it here.

Welcome To Electiondome 2012!

Aunty Entity: "You know the law. Two men enter, one man leaves."

Morning Glorys Keep On Keepin' On

Cast Iron Butter Ball Bread

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cast Iron Butter Ball Bread

 

7     cups unbleached flour

3     cups water

4     T melted unsalted butter

1.5  T salt

2     T sugar

1.5  T yeast

Whisk and dissolve salt, sugar and yeast in the water in the bowl of an electric mixer.

Add the flour, mixing constantly.

Add the melted butter along the way.

Grease a 3 quart cast iron dutch oven with Crisco.

Pour in the dough and let rise, covered with a towel.

Bake at 350 degrees F for 40 to 45 minutes.

Slices best after it cools to room temperature.

A New Companion of My Retreat, All Grown Up Now

BudBud

Up Yours, Denmark, With This!

And just for that, I intend to eat more of it, not less:

Denmark has introduced what’s believed to be the world’s first fat food tax, applying a surcharge to foods with more than 2.3 percent saturated fats, in an effort to combat obesity and heart disease.

Danes hoarded food before the tax went into effect Saturday, emptying grocery store shelves. Some butter lovers may even resort to stocking up during trips abroad.

The new tax of 16 kroner ($2.90) per kilogram (2.2 pounds) of saturated fat in a product will be levied on foods like butter, milk, cheese, pizza, oils and meat.

The Arable

Lo, how the arable
with barley grain

Stands thick, o'ershadow'd;
these, as modern use

Ordains, infus'd, an auburne
drink compose, Wholesome,
of deathless fame.

-- Philips

You!

'Be Happy in Your Work'

Colonel Saito, The Bridge on the River Kwai, 1957