:: Ray's Periodic Rantings ::

:: Wednesday, October 29, 2003 ::

First batch

Last night I baked my first batch of pumpkin bread of the year. It took me a while to get back into familiarity with the routine, which I have become somewhat experienced with, but by the time I put the loaf pans in the oven, it had all come back to me.

I bake a pretty damned good pumpkin bread, if you ask me. I have two...no, three...no four, four things going for me. First, I use an amazing recipe from my friend Carolyn's grandmother's cookbook. In three years of making it, it has never come out dry. The secret ingredient? Instant vanilla pudding mix. Second, I use fresh pumpkin, never canned. You wouldn't believe how easy it is to roast a pumpkin, and how good it tastes. Third, I use a KitchenAid mixer. It is almost scandalous how effortless it makes baking and cooking. Fourth and finally, I have my own embellishment to the recipe, which always catches people by surprise. Instead of the full cup of chopped pecans it calls for, I add half that, and a half cup of, get this, chocolate chips. The result is downright decadent. Yum! I think I'll go have another couple of slices right now!
:: Ray 11:14 PM [+] ::
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How many tons per mile?

Today, slashdot carried this little gem about how many tons of prehistoric plant matter it takes to make a gallon of gasoline. Hint: it's a lot.
:: Ray 10:46 PM [+] ::
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Comfort Food plus

I've been making the same chili recipe for several years, using a national brand of premixed chili spices, and embellishing it my own special way. While I really like my chili, I have to admit it that as of late it has started to seem a bit, well, boring.

Last time I made chili, I tried a completely different recipe for a change of pace. I used a different national brand of premixed chili spices, and I tried chopping up cuts of beef in a food processor instead of using store ground meat. The meat thing was interesting, and I may attempt it again someday, but overall I wasn't so happy with the flavor.

Tonight, craving comfort food, I went back to my original recipe. While shopping at my local independent food market, Joe Caputo and Son, however, I had a stroke of genius. Instead of buying two pounds of ground chuck, I bought just one pound, along with a pound of their yummy hot Italian sausage. Everything else was the same as my usual chili, but WOW, the sausage gave it some amazing zing and added a whole new dimension to the taste.

I've got a new standard recipe for chili now...there's no going back. Change can be good.
:: Ray 11:13 PM [+] ::
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Low Energy

Along with Autumn comes allergy season for me. I have had to take claritin a couple of times this week to stop up the dripping faucet that was my nose, and I have taken sudafed at bedtime in order to be able to breath when lying horizontally. They both make me a bit spacy, and the sudafed lasts almost exactly six hours, after which I wake up feeling not very rested. Ack. So right now I am at the office, my energy and enthusiasm very low. I have to stay after 6pm tonight to work on a project...it will be a struggle.

On the upside, I had lunch at Leo's today: pan fried chicken with mushroom gravy, over a potato pancake and steamed spinach. Yum!

And my ring -- you know, silver lightning bolt one that I always wear -- after an absence of a few weeks, I just now found it in the pocket of the shirt I am wearing. Woohoo!
:: Ray 5:25 PM [+] ::
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Autumn

My kitchen has smelled of food twice today. This morning James and his friend, Scott, were in town from Indianapolis, sleeping out in the Silver Suite. When people stay with me, I am always motivated to cook breakfast. The morning started with the smell of coffee. The grits didn't quite chase this smell away, even when I added cheddar cheese. The bacon did, though. The off-brand box mentioned putting crumbled bacon into breakfast grits -- it sounded like a fantastic idea to me, and I had bacon in the fridge, so I fried some up. Its flavor and texture complimented the grits wonderfully. I'll be making this concoction again and I just may have found the secret ingredient to help me win next year's grit-off.

The last weekend of September, I participated in a grit cooking contest at the decompression party in Wisconsin that I attended (see the September 30 entry). There were only a couple of us cooking, and the winner had an ingredient that I didn't: canned jalepeno peppers. If we do it again next year, I think I can wow everybody with my newfound use for cured pork.

In the Blackfoot tradition, Autumn is a time of harvest, gathering the bounty of summer, laying stores for winter hibernation, and going into the bear's cave to dream our great dreams. There are cues all around me that it is that time. The shorter days and longer shadows are one. The brilliant colors in the trees are another. Today the sun made fiery yellows and reds even brighter. The best thing about Autumn, though, is the smells. There is the musty smell of fallen leaves and the smoky smell where they are being burnt. And tonight, in my kitchen, a second smell for today. I have just baked pumpkins. They are cooling as I write, waiting to be peeled and seeded, then pureed, so that in the coming weeks I can bake mouth-watering pumpkin bread, truly from scratch. That smell, of cooking pumpkin, sweet, yeth earthy and spicy, has become for me one of the wonderful smells that heralds Autumn. It can be a sad time of year, but I welcome it and whatever it may bring.
:: Ray 10:07 PM [+] ::
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Catch-up

Last weekend I flew to Austin for a dual-purpose weekend. Saturday night I stayed at the very-cool Hotel San Jose, in one of the coolest hotel rooms I have ever occupied. Among its finer points were the red-painted floor, the futon-like bed, and the "Last Tango in Paris" poster on the wall. That evening, I visited once again with my friends, Eve and Tobin, who were celebrating their marriage the week before with a lovely soiree at their home. Guests were extravagantly wined and dined to the tunes of a delightul jazz trio.

Sunday, after brunch, I drove to San Antonio to hang with Chris and April, friends of Burning Man origin. We visited the Alamo and the River Walk, then had appetizers in the local version of a space needle, built for the 1968 World Fair. That night we had barbecue turkey, pork, ribs, and sausage at a place where they serve it on paper by the pound, and you eat family style on picnic tables. Yum.

Sting

I am indebted to my friend, Alexis, in New Jersey, for giving me tickets she had won to the free Sting concert in Grant Park on Tuesday. I had never seen a Police or Sting concert, and didn't know quite what to expect. The show was fantastic, though. Sting still has it, and he put on a great show

Sting carried on his tradition of playing the old tunes in very different styles. He opened with Walking on the Moon, one of my favorites, and performed it in a way that made me see it in a whole new light. I have always thought of it primarily as a "space" song, superficially because of the song's title and refrain, but also because of the sparse, spatial guitar and vocal style in which it was recorded. Tuesday night, however, Sting played and sang it as the musings of a guy, head over heels in love, on the way home from a date with his girl. The lyrics have always been there...I just never heard them in that light.

My only criticism about the show was in the staging and use of three video monoliths that were behind the performers. I had no problem with these when they showed moving abstract images during most songs, and they were used to great effect, I think during Invisible Sun, showing a relatively static scene of a cloudy sky with the sun eclipsed. I was bothered, however, when people showed up in the videos, as ghostly dancers and ethnic characters. Their presence only served to point out how highly produced and unspontaneous the show had to be for them to be there, and they distracted from the real show happening live, on stage. I know we are the MTV generation, but I think it is sad that someone might even consider that Sting and his band aren't interesting enough to watch for a couple of hours, all by themselves.

Governator

Not worth much of a mention, except to say that it will be fun to watch him collide with the reality of governance. Movie magic can't help with the reality of California's budget situation, and neither can the Republican fantasy of endless tax cuts. I might also point out that Clinton was pursued by the Republicans for years, at a cost of $60 million, essentially for having consensual sex, while the Governator gets a pass despite multiple allegations of years of distinctly not consensual groping and harassment. Kind of says something about what's really important to Republicans, doesn't it?

Bill O'Reilly is a wimp

Teri Gross interviewed political talk show host/bully Bill O'Reilly, known for shouting down his guests, on Wednesday. I can't tell you how fun it was to hear him get all upset and blustery at the pointed questions she asked in her nice, npr-lady manner. She was trying to get him to respond both to allegations that have been made against him, and his own, publicly made statements. Ultimately he walked out, presumably when he realized she had caught him in a wonderful bit of hypocrisy. Listen here, and don't miss the last five minutes.
:: Ray 3:15 PM [+] ::
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Having considered what I wrote earlier today, I'd like to rephrase part of it slightly. I referred to Grover Norquist as an "evil fuck hack". I think that "callous fuck hack" is more accurate and appropriate. I think the man doesn't give two shits about what happens to other people. And I think it is scary that he has the ear of the President of the United States of America, when I consider his vision of how this country ought to run downright horrifying.

I have been listening to Teri Gross for a long time. I can tell when she is enjoying an interview, as when she has spoken with Tom Waits, and when she is disturbed by what she is hearing, as in her infamous interview with Gene Simmons. She sounded skeptical and appalled by what she heard from Grover today. Listen for yourself.
:: Ray 5:17 PM [+] ::
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Shock

I am listening to Teri Gross interviewing Grover Norquist on Fresh Air. Grover is the principal architect behind Prez Bush's tax policy. He ascribes to the philosophy of "starve the beast", which is to say he wants to cut revenue to the government so that it will be forced, by lack of revenue, to cut spending. He literally wants to shrink government by half. Think, for a moment, about what that would do to essential services.

He just compared the morality of the estate tax to the morality of the holocaust, then denied it when Teri called him on it, and then did it again in clarifying his remarks. This man is completely unapologetic about one of the most destructive agendas ever wrought on our country, and is one of the most evil fuck hacks I have ever heard. Unless you happen to be a multimillionaire, what he advocates is going to hurt you, yet he will deny it with a straight face and self-righteous demeanor.

Please support Howard Dean or Wesley Clark or whomever the Democrats nominate to run against Bush. We cannot afford another four years of these greedy hypocrite bastards running things. Unless you are one of those multimillionaires, that is.
:: Ray 11:15 AM [+] ::
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