Dilemma: Beer or Cheese?

I've been trying to decide what to do today: Eat cheese or drink beer?

I know, why not both?

Join the O-folk at the Isthmus Beer & Cheese Fest in beautiful Madison, Wisconsin. More than 80 of the best Wisconsin brews and more than 80 of the best Wisconsin cheese varieties, Who'd want to miss that?

She's No Sandra Dee

After all these years, I still think Stockard Channing steals the show.

Set Your Tivo

Too bad I don't have cable (or tv, for that matter). Tomorrow night, History Channel airs Modern Marvels: The Potato. Man, I'm so jealous of those of you with cable...

That's A LOT of Salami...

1,240,000 pounds of meat recalled* due to Salmonella Montevideo (makes you sick/can kill you) contamination.

*USDA Class I Recall: "...a health hazard situation where there is a reasonable probability that the use of the product will cause serious, adverse health consequences or death."

Making Dinner with Ella and Frank and Dean and Nat and...

How's Crab Etouffee sound? Yeah, I thought so...

Pandora's pretty cool. I typed in "Dean Martin," and it's playing nothing but Martin, Sinatra, Cole, Ella, Armstrong, Michael Buble, Harry Connick Jr., etc.

You Gotta Have Goals

My plan for this weekend is to finish John Irving's Last Night in Twisted River, of which I'm on page 279 or 554. Think I'll make it? I'd like to finish it and return it to the library before or on the due date (1/25).

Returning a book before it's overdue is a novel idea for me. (For the rest of the Monona Ofolks, too, for that matter. Number Two Son is now afraid to go to the library because he's had a book out since his sophomore year.) To prove my point, I'm once again banned from checking anything out or renewing anything until I pay my current fines--$14.80. That might sound like a lot to you, but it's nothing here at O-Central. One time the fines for My Dearest O and I totaled about $50.00. No joke. I think the last time I paid my own fines, just a month or two ago, the total was over $20.00. I suppose if we had less than 40 unread, unlistened to, and unwacthed* checked-out items laying around the house at any one time we might have so many fines. We don't care, though, 'cause we know it's our own fault and we like to give our money to a good cause*.

Cheers,
-b

*It's the DVDs that'll kill you. The late fines are something like $1.00 a day. I can't seem to remember that fact when I have a DVD checked out.

**Once again, a shout out to Monona Public Library, Madison Public Library, and all the libraries in the South Central Library System. I consider this the best investment of my tax dollars (and fines).

Dinner Tonight: Low Key

Tonight I'm making Sausage Sweet Potato Bake. We had this for dinner a few weeks ago while Sean was here. (This was a night that Tim wasn't joining us for dinner. As a rule, Tim doesn't do veggies--and certainly not sweet potatoes and apples together.) It was surprisingly tasty and disappeared in a flash.

Here's the recipe, lifted from Willy Street Coop that lifted it from More with Less Cookbook:

1 lb. bulk sausage, browned & fat drained
2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled & sliced
3 medium apples, peeled & sliced
2 T sugar (or brown sugar)
1 T flour
1/4 t cinnamon
1 t salt
1/2 c water

Heat oven to 375. Layer sausage, sweet potato slices, & apple slices in 2 quart casserole. Combine remaining ingredients; pour over casserole. Bake until potato & apples are tender, about 50-60 minutes. Serve with a leafy green salad & crusty bread.

Recap: Easy, cheap, healthy, and yummy. Leftovers heat well for work lunches.

Bonus: All major ingredients local & seasonal. (Are pigs seasonal

Update (1/10): The first time I used Italian sausage; last night I used savory sage. Both are good. If I make it again, which I probably will because it's an easy crowd-pleaser with ingredients we usually have on hand, I'll reduce the sugar by half or elimate it altogether.

Huh?

We're only a week into the new year, but it'll be hard to top the story in which security officials planted plastic explosives* in a guy's luggage without his knowledge and sorta somehow didn't remove them before he boarded his international flight and flew all the way to another country.

*Stable and "harmless" without a detonator, but still...

Tonight's Sumptious Repast: Individual Crustless Carrot Quiche & Tomato, Cheese & Pesto Panini

Recipe for Crustless Carrot Quiche, adapted from Epicurious.com:

butter
1/2 cup onion, minced
1 clove garlic (or to taste), minced
2 cups+ carrots, finely shredded* (about 2 large carrots)
6 eggs, very fresth
1-1/4 cup 1/2 & 1/2
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ginger
1/8 tsp pepper
1-1-/4 cup shredded cheese, your choice (I used Rote Kase Grand Cru Gruyere Swiss)

Melt butter (maybe 1 TB?) in skillet. Saute onion about 5 minutes. Add garlic. Saute a minute. Add carrots, carefully saute for a minute or two. Don't saute vegetable too much; they should still be crunchy. As a matter of fact, I think I'll skip this step next time, at least with the carrots. Cool.

Heat oven to 350 degree.

Mix eggs, 1/2 & 1/2, and seasonings well. Add cheese & cooled carrot mixture. Whatever you do, don't add hot veggies (or anything else hot) to egg mixture. I'm sure you're too smart to do that, though, aren't you. (I'm not; I've done it before. Duh.)

Fill 4" tart pans. Cook about 20 minutes, or until set. Serve warm

Very yummy. Variations: Add any herbs, seasonings, or vegetables you like. Wine pairing: Gewurztraminer. It works.

*The Epicurious recipe directs you to boil the carrots. Don't. I tried that and didn't like the results. The carrots were mushy, and you lose a lot of the nutrients. I added the boiled mess to my vegetable stock trimmings in the freezer and started over.

Movie Reviews: "Christmas" Movies, Part 1

Usually around the holidays we watch all our old Christmas favorites*, but for some reason we haven't gotten around to it this year. Although for weeks we've had them piled up in the living room along with a dozen or so that I'd checked out of the library, we only watched three (library) movies, and I'm not so sure they meet most folks' idea of "Christmas" or "holiday" movies. (There are no depictions of Jesus' birth, no Santas or elves or reindeer, no little children awakening to Christmas morning miracles.) Another thing worth noting is that they're all foreign--one Japanese and two French--which is odd because we don't watch many foreign films.

Tokyo Godfathers: Maybe you guessed that this is the Japanese film. Tokyo Godfathers, which we watched with Sean, earned three thumbs up, one (mine) somewhat lukewarm. Three homeless people--a drunken gambler Gin), a transvestite (Hana), and a teenage runaway girl (Miyuki)--find an abandoned baby girl on Christmas. Hana believes the baby is a gift from God, and refuses to turn her over to the authorities. The three attempt to care for the baby until, realizing the danger that poses to the baby, they embark on a search for her parents. I don't think I've spoiled anything, because you learn all that just from reading the dvd jacket, but that's all I'm going to say about the plot.

Now I'll explain my lukewarmness. You probably know that we lived in Japan. (I'd move back today if I were guaranteed a job that'd keep My Dearest O and me out of poverty.) I love Japan and all things Japanese--the people, the language**, the history, the culture... One thing I never grew to like very much is anime, and Tokyo Godfathers is anime. The film's city scenes are beautiful, but, like a lot of anime, the exaggerated depictions of the people are rather alarming. Hysterical Hana, with her bugged out eyes and gaping mouth and her sobbing and screeching, particularly freaked me out.

Other than that, I liked it okay. The story wasn't bad. Most of the non-human animation was very good. I guess I'll give it 3 out of 5 stars.

*It's a Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street, Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the real one with Boris Karloff), Love Actually, Elf, Charlie Brown Christmas, and A Christmas Story.

**I understood almost none of the spoken Japanese in this film. Guess the 20-something credit hours in class and oodles of money on language materials were well spent!

Movie Review: The Real Dirt on Farmer John

I beg you forgive my lack of detail in the following review. After all, I watched htis documentary a few weeks ago, and I can barely remember what I did this morning.

As she looked over my selection of chicken-raising related books, the kindly Monona librarian recommended I check out this film. I promptly put in a request for it as soon as I got home.

The Monona librarian had warned me that the film started slowly but also had urged me to stick with it through the first 20 minutes or so. I don't necessarily agree that the beginning is slow; it's meant to give some background on the early family and farm life of John Peterson (aka Farmer John). (For those who don't know, Farmer John is the famous celebrity-farmer/proprietor of Angelic Organics in Northern Illinois.)

John came from a family in which everyone--grandparents, parents, aunts & uncles--farmed. John was raised on his family's farm, for which he took over most of the responsibility while still a teenager. While in college during the late 60's, John hooked up with a group of what used to be known as hippies--you know, dope-smoking artists and other free spirit types--who came to live and work on the farm with him. The rural northern Illinois farming community neighbors did not approve, and soon wild rumours abound concerning John--who himself is a bit of a character by most standards--and the goings-on at the farm.

I don't want to spoil this for those who might be interested in it, so I'll stop there. Let's just say that the film is about much more that John's personal story. It's about the loss of family farms/the rise of big agriculture and how that has affected our land and how and what we eat. It's about reclaiming the overworked, poisoned land with a healthier and smarter, albeit often more demanding, way of farming. It's about the farmer reconnecting with the people for whom he's producing, and those people in return learning not just about where their food comes from and how it's grown but also how they can give back to the farmer.

4/5 stars. I say rent it. It'll make you think. And, there's plenty of eye candy for farm junkies such as I.

Favorite part: (Probably) the bit where John explains the "salad" of the fallow field.

Heartbreaking: The auction of a family's farm equipment, an entire family's farming history sold for peanuts.

Hi. I'm B, and I Have a Reading Problem

Although I have 30+ items checked out (a dozen don't count!--they're videos!) and I'm actively reading about 1/2 dozen books, I couldn't resist checking out this little book.

I ask you: Who could resist a title like this?

Words to Live By

My favorite of the many socialist stickers on the basement door at Harmony Bar & Grill.

Happy New Year!

Promises Kept

As I sat here having a snack, a little bowlful of Sevillian Marinated Carrots, I realized that I had promised to post the recipe adapted from Anya von Bremzen's The New Spanish Table. Here it is:

* 1 pound carrots, peeled, cooked until crisp-tender (The author boils 'em; I steam 'em.)
* 3 - 4 cloves chopped garlic (or to taste--I use 4 or more)
* 1-1/2 - 2 tsp cumin seeds
* 2 tsp dried oregano
* pinch red pepper flakes
* 1 TB fresh parsley, chopped; more for garnish if desired (There have been times I didn't have any fresh parsley and left it out. I don't think the dish suffered at all.)
* 1 tsp coarse salt (I use sea salt; kosher works too.)
* 1/2 cup (I usually use less, about 1 cup) + 1 tsp olive oil
* 1/2 cup lemon juice (Use fresh if you've got it; bottled is just fine.)
* 1-1/2 TB red wine vinegar (Start with 1 TB or less and add more to taste.)

Slice carrots into 1/4" slices. Mash garlic, cumin seeds, oregano, red pepper, salt, and 1 TB olive oil into a paste. Mix the lemon juice, olive oil, and vinegar with the paste. Toss the carrots with the mixture. Refrigerate at least several hours, overnight if you can. (The longer these sit, the better they are. Serve at room temperature.) Makes a lot, but not enough. Double the recipe if you want to eat carrots all week.