What Do I Know?

Friday Cow Blogging

Reconnaissance mission: Find cows. Determine when they'll come home.

My cows still haven't shown up. Last year by this time they had been released from their winter digs into the pasture behind my house. Now they're two weeks overdue, but so is spring.

I left home today by a different route, and spied the same herd of cows in a nearby pasture. (This is as close as I could get, with a zoom.) They were all lying down, which is weird. Cows are always up on their feet, grazing. Maybe they thought they were unobserved, and could get by with loafing.

They have babies with them, too, tiny calves who'll grow on me like the last bunch did. I know I probably shouldn't name them, but I can't help it. They're so sweet, and they love to hear me talk to them. The neighbors think I'm nuts, but then I'm American; I'm expected to be eccentric.

So how much longer till the cows come home?

Are You Sick of Having Your Pockets Picked by the Liberal Blogosphere?

Just a reminder to all of you who've been tricked into thinking Joe Lieberman is the worst thing that ever happened to the Democratic party: he's not. And Bob Casey will be far, far worse. After all, if the guy would vote to confirm Alito, what else could we expect from him as a junior senator from Pennsylvania? A vote to ban gay marriage? A vote to go to war in Iran? A vote against the impeachment of George Bush?

Further, you can expect a much, much harder job next time around finding anyone with the courage to run against him. (And it does take courage to run against someone the chief bishops of the Democratic party have all but anointed in holy water.)

Maybe you'll be able to find a self-financed millionaire to run against Senator Casey, but don't count on it. Instead of spending your hard-earned dough attempting to rid the Senate of Joe Lieberman, a cause which may or may not be worthy, but is certainly doomed, why don't you try instead to prevent the election of Joe Lieberman II, or Ben Nelson II, or Sam Nunn III, in Pennsylvania?

And those of you still smarting from having thrown your money at Ciro in a doomed race, here's some news: Pennsylvanians don't like conservative Democrats any more than you do.

From an interview with Chuck Pennacchio, candidate for Senate, at All Facts and Opinions:

Chuck Pennacchio: ...Democrats in Pennsylvania don't know how to win US Senate seats. So my first motivation was: How do we stop Rick Santorum from being reelected in 2006? And I scratched my head and I looked at the history of the Democratic Party in Pennsylvania and realized that they've lost 14 straight US Senate elections since 1964. The last one who won, in 1962, was Joe Clark, who was progressive.

Support Chuck Pennacchio. He's a real progressive, a real Democrat, with a real chance of winning.

Read Anything Good Lately? (Like, Lamb?)

On the radio just now they were talking about blooks, and the "Blooker Awards" which will be announced on April 3. This guy said publishers were mining blogs for possible books. Or blooks. Okay, whatever. If you're a publisher, please read no further. My blog is is even crappier than those manuscripts you never bothered to read, so just go away.

Speaking of the book industry...what would Jesus write?

I didn't get too upset about James Frey, the memoir writer who made up his memoirs. Lying in print is what fiction writers do, after all.

But this sounds like a fitting tribute.

On the other hand, why are admitted plagiarists winning awards?

I signed up for Powell's newsletter, but I still have to read Booksquare to discover this interview with one of my favorite authors, Christopher Moore. (I recommended Lamb a while back. Y'all read it yet?)

Even though I haven't read The DaVinci Code, I doubt seriously the author stole the idea. The thing is, most non-writers think it's the idea that's the thing. Nope. Ideas for novels are a dime a dozen, and about as cheap as that cliché I just used. Dan Brown would have had no trouble coming up with the idea that Jesus had a relationship with Mary Magdalene (by reading Lamb, for instance) and if not, there are always helpful people coming up to novelists at parties saying "Hey! I have a great idea for a novel! How about I give you the idea and you write it and we split the money?!"

But I'd never in a million years have thought this one up. (If you aren't registered, just click "outside the U.S." and you'll be directed to the article.)

And We Cook, Too

Bread Rolls with Sundried Tomatoes and Walnuts, from Isil

If you want the recipe for these yummy rolls, you can find it in the new cookbook Ginger put together (with only a little help from me, no matter what she says), And They Cook, Too.

For only $15, you can have all the recipes listed here, and more: the wit, wisdom, and artwork of bloggers who were kind enough to contribute their culinary knowledge, with, of course, a bit of snark thrown in here and there—what else would you expect from bloggers?

Ginger says it all (and more—I blush!) in her introduction, but I'll recap:  She got the idea after the earthquake hit Pakistan last fall and, once again, Doctors Without Borders was there. How to help, when you're tapped out from giving to so many disasters already? Having read a lot of blogs, and knowing there was undiscovered culinary talent right there at the click of a mouse, she got the idea for a cookbook, with the proceeds going to Doctors Without Borders, known in many parts of the world as Medecins Sans Frontieres.

She asked me to help, and I jumped at the chance. Ginger, though, did the lion's share of the work—my hat goes off to anyone who can wrestle Word to the ground, hold it there for a count of ten, and then not chuck it at me when I tell her there's a misspelled word on page 68 at the dead last minute.

I enjoyed editing the work of so many fine kitchen artists and wordsmiths. Plus I noticed many of the recipes, while not vegetarian, can easily be veganized: watch me turn Hot and Sadly Squid into Hot and Sadly Tofu! And Chocolate Coffee Toffee Oatmeal Cookies sounds like a delicious mouthful, doesn't it?

So go on, get your copy now. And then, as Diane says in her wonderful essay you'll find on page one, Start Cooking!

Why I'm Mad Today and Thinking Seriously of Crying

Just thought you should know:

I. Hate. Microsoft. Word.

And will the excuse "Word ate my paper" fly with my teacher? I suspect so; he seemed a little iffy on the operations of his mobile phone. I bet he'll understand why my paper is missing all the brilliant bits.

The Bayeux Tapestry: Deleted Scenes

In researching my paper on the Bayeux Tapestry I came across some deleted scenes:

More, from whence that cometh.

Or maketh your own.

Dear Americans: Can We Talk About Guantanamo Bay?

I have given up. I am hopeless. I don't care about anything any more. I just want to be released. My health doesn't matter. Death in this situation is better than being alive and staying here without hope. Death would be better if it helped end this situation.
    —from a BBC interview with a Guantanamo detainee

Today on the radio Justin Webb, the BBC American correspondent, was at the county Republican caucus* in Des Moines, Iowa, asking people about Guantanamo. No one he spoke to seemed to think it was a problem; one man asked if we wanted to bring the "terrorists" over here to Liverpool, or perhaps the Isle of Man.

Another said even the "Democratic activists" he knew weren't talking about Guantanamo Bay.

The purpose of the interview wasn't to tell us that there are abuses going on in Guantanamo; we've heard that. Instead, it was to let Britons know that Americans couldn't care less that the rest of the world thinks Guantanamo is a shameful disgrace to human dignity.

Message received.

Americans might be surprised to learn that the BBC-listening world wakes up about every other morning to news about Guantanamo, a geographically insignificant spit of U.S.-owned land within the sovereign nation of Cuba. We've heard about the force-feeding of detainees, which isn't nearly as innocuous as it sounds, and about other forms of torture practiced there. We've heard former American military members tell what they saw there. We know that several Britons previously held there have been released, and no charges were ever filed against them.  We've read an interview with a Kuwaiti man being held there. We've heard the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, condemn the lack of habeas corpus. We've heard Desmond Tutu call the camp a "stain on the character of the United States." We know that the U.N. human rights commission has called for the closure  of Guantanamo Bay "without further delay."

We also know that none of the 490 people there have been tried or convicted of any crime. Only ten have been charged (their cases are at various stages in the legal process). We know that many of them were turned in by their neighbors, who wanted to collect the reward money offered in flyers dropped by the American military. We know that even the FBI has found evidence of torture, including lit cigarettes placed in the ears of detainees.

We know that the U.S. is losing the battle for hearts and minds, everywhere but in Iowa.

We know all this, thanks to the early morning voices on the BBC, but Americans either don't know, or don't care, or believe that what their country is doing is okay. If it's the first, then someone needs a wake up call.

Please turn to the person next to you and say, "Have you heard about what's going on in Guantanamo Bay?"

*Correction from earlier; it was not the State Fair, as I thought, but they were serving barbeque. And probably Freedom Fries.

We The People...ZZZZZ

In The Founders Never Imagined a Bush Administration, authors Joyce Appleby and Gary Hart explain what bugs me about the phrase "war on terror": (via TPM)

President Bush has given Commander-in-Chief Bush unlimited wartime authority. But the "war on terror" is more a metaphor than a fact. Terrorism is a method, not an ideology; terrorists are criminals, not warriors. No peace treaty can possibly bring an end to the fight against far-flung terrorists. The emergency powers of the president during this "war" can now extend indefinitely, at the pleasure of the president and at great threat to the liberties and rights guaranteed us under the Constitution.

We're in a constitutional crisis, they argue rather dispassionately, but until the people wake up and confront the tyranny that is the Bush administration, neither the Congress nor the Supreme Court will do anything to check the executive branch.

Would all you people in America please nudge the person on your right and shout

WAKE UP!!!!!

Good News From Iraq!

Today in Iraq, the vast majority of Iraqis were not killed by bombs.

However, some news agencies are reporting that a tiny minority of Iraqis were killed when a bomb exploded in a small—miniscule, really—section of Baghdad. Which just goes to show, the media is obviously biased and will never report the good news.

Giving Blair, Bush and Cheney What For

Many Americans think Tony Blair is a kinder, gentler, less corrupt George Bush. Over here on this side of the pond we know better.

Lately the news over here is all about loans made to the Labour party, by people naturally hoping to be paid back in either a nice government contract, or permission to build their Tesco store in my little village, or perhaps, if the government is all out of more lucrative perks, a peerage.

There was relief in sight, as Tony Blair had announced months ago that he would not serve out his third term, and would resign (leaving the reins with Gordon Brown, presumably) before the next election sometime in the hazy future.

Now he says he regrets saying that.

What are we to do? Bloggerheads has an answer, and it ain't pretty:

This shit must end

All of these matters and more need to be addressed. Without fear. I say we that we should let the record show that Britain stood up for what's right and gave Blair what for.

Yes, we may end up with an interim, crippled or Tory government as a result, but - at this stage - that's better than what we have and more than we deserve.

One last time, folks.... over the top we go. And this time let's finish the job.

Attention all troops

This is a formal call for an ammunition check. What have we got that we haven't used? What have we got that can be used again? Count it, check it, and get ready to use it. Blair must fall.

I'd like to amend his words only slightly, and insert "Bush and Cheney" in amongst the list of those we give what for.

Because whatever Blair has done, Bush and Cheney have done better. But they all three must go. Russ Feingold gets this. He's loaded his ammo and is taking the first shots.

The question that must be asked now, rather than when the history books are written, is, when our country needed protecting, where were the rest of the Democrats in Congress? 

A Short Treatise on Blog Awards and Gender

I'm really sick of all the blatant self-promotion going on over the latest round of blog awards (if you tout your blog one more time I'm removing it from my blogroll! I didn't get nominated [due to the fact my readers are lazy couldn't care less] nor am I bitter or anything.) but the newest baseball-themed lefty blog awards raise serious issues of cronyism in our genderally imbalanced blogosphere.

Grasping the cleats of yet another dead (and male) baseball star, the punctuation profuse Sadly, No! gives us the Ty Cobb Awards, wherein we perennially overlooked female writers can't even get a nomination for Least Humorous or Most Deserving of Less Recognition. Where is Kevin Drum when you need him, scratching his non-existent beard and asking "Hmmm, where are all the goddamned women?"

I bet you anything the vote counting is done by a nerdy clutch of post-graduate males who can't even spell 'palimpsests' without putting down their beer and asking a girl.

Friday Cow Blogging

Chilterns cows consider a work stoppage in an effort to force humans to wean themselves.

"When are you tittybaby humans going to wean yourselves?" asked this Chilterns cow, while her companion continued to eat grass. "Our young generally are fully weaned by one year; it's only you humans who find it necessary to drink breast milk beyond the time you're pottytrained. What's up with that?"

In other parts of Britain, cows are considering stopping lactating altogether, after having their numbers decimated by outbreaks of mad cow and hoof and mouth disease.

"It's really dangerous to our health to continue to supply you suckling humans in this way," spokescow Hilda McBunga said on BBC Radio 4. "Our udders are sore and full of pus, yet humans continue to squeeze them, as if they never outgrew the breast."

Representatives of the soybean industry quickly announced they would increase production of soya milk, which Defra officials are hoping will fill the supermarket shelves until the cows return to their jobs. But one dairy industry spokesman expressed concern: "If people wean themselves during this work stoppage, they may never go back to drinking cows' milk again. We could have millions of cows just sitting around, like rabbits or something."

I Dream of Groceries

You can stop going to Whole Foods to buy oily fish. A review of the studies shows no benefits to eating fish.

If you want my advice, get your omega-3s from the same source the fish do, plant foods. Flax is high in alpha linolenic acid, an omega-3, and so are hemp and purslane. Deep sea algae is also a good source, but I'd avoid that, unless you are indeed a fish.

As for Whole Foods, I always thought they were a snooty store. They don't carry some of the brands I prefer, like Better Than Milk Original formula soymilk*.  Plus they are just too expensive. Cheaper, more plebeian, alternatives are popping up everywhere, including the wonderful Vitamin Cottage HFS chain out west. I haven't been to a Trader Joe's, but my sources in Albuquerque report they've opened one near my old house.

My new Vegetarian Times reports that Americans toss 25% of the produce they buy in the rubbish bin. Altogether, 14% of the food they buy is tossed. Pick up a copy of the magazine if you live in the U.S.; it contains lots of good recipes for using your produce.

In my personal war on grocery tossing, it's been two full weeks since my last online shopping trip (bought only a couple of items since then). We are still eating leftovers and have only a few carrots and a stem of broccoli in the fridge. Maybe I'll make a stirfry tonight with the tofu. 

My refrigerator makes a hollow noise now when I shut the door. I long for the smell of the produce aisle. Can someone remind me what a banana tastes like?

But for a treat, I'm off to Heston Blumenthal's restaurant for lunch today. No, not the number one in the world Fat Duck, but his pub next door, Hinds Head. I did organize a trip to the Fat Duck, but backed out when the table of six was filled by other gastronomes in my group. (Not to mention I didn't want to pay £100 for a meal of dubious quality, vegan-wise.) I'll let you know how his pub fare measures up.

*Note to Daughter Number 1: Please send me BTM now! We are on the last quart! Got it today! Thanks!

Stranger In a Strange Land

I was talking to a sweet-looking little old lady at the common this morning, and naturally we were discussing whether or not it would rain, which led to comments about the water shortage we've been warned about, which led to her telling me our water shortage problems were due to the fact that there were just too many people here.

There are, she said, too many foreigners living here.

A few minutes later she asked, "Are you from America?" and I said yes, but there was no mention of whether I was one of the foreigners she was talking about.

Nevertheless, I shall try not to use too much water.

Wednesday Food Blogging: Drunken Pintos with Lime and Onion Confit

Drunken Pintos: Eat Responsibly.

It's only day three of my grocery challenge, and I'm feeling the heat. I thought I had yellow onions, and it turns out I only have red. That's a real puzzle, as I usually keep a three month's supply just in case the onion crop goes belly up.

You just never know.

Last night I soaked some pinto beans and today I simmered them all afternoon. Good thing, since dried beans should ideally be used within 6 months. My recipe calls for beer, and not just any old American piss either. You must use a fine English ale, bottle conditioned, with a smooth, foamy head.

Okay, I'm full of crap. Use a dark beer; Guinness will do. Just don't use Miller. Because you'll want to drink the rest.

And about those onions...I normally use sweet yellow onions (Vidalia or Maui are excellent, if they're in season) but the red I was forced to use weren't bad. They must be caramelized, cooked over low heat for almost as long as the beer is conditioned...okay, maybe an hour. Forty-five minutes will do in a pinch.

But do call them "onion confit" when they're done. It just sounds better.

And The Survey Says...

Waitrose Food magazine has a survey this month of cooking habits of British men and women over age 20.

Here are the results, with my answers following, because this blog is all about me, you know:

1. 74% said they never bake their own bread. One fifth said they only bake bread with the help of technology. Only 6.5% bake bread by hand.

Me: I make some type of dough about once a month, whether it's bread, pizza dough, foccacia, tortillas (that counts, right?) or naan. Mostly by hand, although I have a bread machine, that works on 110, so I'm not sure but what it would give me half-baked bread.

2. Just 5% get cooking inspiration from TV chefs; in the northwest, only 1.9% do.

Me: I've never watched a cooking show, except once I watched Jamie Oliver. He's seems a nice chap to have a pint with, but not someone you'd want teaching you the secrets of risotto. In another article in the magazine, a writer maintains that TV chefs aren't really chefs, they're entertainers, and points out that the French, who unlike the English never bother with already-prepared food, don't have any TV cooking gurus at all. I'm with the French on this; pass the wine.

3. Only 23% actually use their cookbooks to cook. 15% NEVER use cookbooks, and 65% of the women say they only use cookbooks for inspiration.

Me: I have dozens and dozens of cookbooks, and I use them about once a week and also turn to them for inspiration. I love to curl up with a good cookbook; doesn't everyone? (You won't believe this; I just counted my cookbooks and I have 101, just like the website 101 Cookbooks! I probably have a few more lying around here and there, though.)

4. 63% claim they don't bake as much as their mothers did.

Me: Mothers baked?

5. 58% said they do not spend more than half an hour cooking dinner each night. In London, the number was a whopping 73%. Only 1% would spend more than two hours cooking dinner.

Me: I usually keep my meal making to under 30 minutes too, but I never cook meat, which takes a long time. About once a week or so I spend an hour or more in the kitchen. I enjoy spending hours cooking when I have the time, and no distractions that can ruin a meal. (See number 7.)

6. 30% of people in the southwest use their kitchen more than any other room in the house, while only 7% of those in the East Midlands say this.

Me: Good thing I don't live in the East Midlands. I'm either in the kitchen or the office, 90 percent of my waking time at home. We could just chop off the rest of the house.

7. Of the men surveyed, 16% said they "can't bake to save their life". Half as many women said the same.

Me: I've made plenty of crap baked goods, most recently a too-salty sticky toffee pudding and too-crumbly flapjacks (in America they're called granola bars). And my life will forever be defined by the birthday cake my aunt and I baked my mom that erupted down the middle in a giant fault line. But I think I could save my life.

What about you?

Foodie Challenge Update: R.I.P. Cauliflower

It was the cauliflower's time to go.

He met his end with dignity and grace, in a bowl of cauliflower soup, with a splash of white wine and a dash of nutmeg for company. His friends, the broccoli and red cabbage, both mourn his passing, but recognize that life in a vegetable bin is often short and tragic.

At least they didn't go the way of the turnips, which had to be tossed after a bit of fuzz appeared on the root end of the largest, and most handsome, of the three.

Turnips, we hardly knew ye.

How Do You Like That Freedom We Brought You, Update 192

Remember Afghanistan, the country we freed from Taliban extremists?

I guess freedom means different things to different people.

Undercover at the Estate Agents

Exposed! Agents' dirty tricks!

I've known a few real estate agents in the States, and for the most part they are honest, if sometimes overly aggressive, professionals. Estate agents in Britain, however, have a reputation for being sleazy, and it turns out that reputation is deserved:

My boss congratulates me on getting an offer on a flat that has been overvalued by £60,000. The newly-wed young couple viewing the property are stretched to their financial limit. But my manager is happy.

He takes me aside and explains how to convince a surveyor that the flat in London's fashionable Notting Hill is worth more than it is. He calls it "slightly simmering" - I call it cooking the books.

...

Faking documents is something of a habit in the St John's Wood office, where Emma Clarke worked undercover in the lettings department.

I was shocked when she played me her secret footage which showed staff cutting, pasting and gluing signatures onto contracts. They call it "chop chop".

A BBC reporter went undercover, and what she found out is shocking, but not unexpected. There is no regulation of estate agents here like there is in the U.S., and it shows. When we were looking for a house in London, a slick guy named Roger from Foxtons, the same office mentioned in the investigation, sped us around in his Mini, rogering us in more ways than one.

I found out he was lying to me about the availability of a house, and promptly soured on the idea of living in London proper. All the London agents I talked to were stressed out and scarily aggressive: I saw one a few months later on the street and I ducked inside a doorway to avoid him. By contrast, agents outside the M25 seemed a little less caffeinated, a little more cozy. They drove slower too.

So beware if you're planning to buy or rent in London. And if you run into Roger, don't believe a word he says.

A Foodie Challenge!

It's been several days since I visited the grocery store, and I'm wondering how long the food in my pantry and refrigerators (two British-sized fridges) will sustain us.

I normally hoard canned goods and non-perishables, and stock enough fresh veg to have a head start on any recipe in my 100 or so cookbooks. (I hoard those too. Alphabetized.) I estimate I have enough canned beans and tomatoes to last through a nuclear winter.

Sometimes I wonder if I have a problem.

Let's see if I can last a week without buying anything from the store. Here's a rough inventory:

In my veggie bins I have broccoli, cauliflower, red cabbage (lots of cruciferousness), some carrots, onions (red and yellow), a couple of green and red peppers, and a bag of spinach. I've also got tofu, powdered soy milk and fake cheese; no need to go to the store for dairy-less products.

My freezers are full, with frozen dough, ready-to-eat veggie meals (for solo dining), a Quorn loaf (for special occasions), frozen peas and corn, and some frozen lentil soup I made months ago.

My pantry shelves are stuffed with canned goods, dried beans and lentils (red and green), flours, boxes of cereal, nuts, dried peppers, spices. The basics: olive oil and lots of tea, green, black, and oolong.

I have some frozen dough thawing for pizza tonight, for which I'll make my own sauce from a can of tomato paste, layer some spinach and red pepper on that, and top with the non-dairy cheese.

I expect the few slices of bread will be gone or gone bad in a couple of days; after that I'll have to bake a loaf from the strong (bread) flour I've got loads of, having accidentally bought two more bags from Waitrose when I already had a bag or two.

Nor will my store-bought biscuits (cookies) last the week, so I'll have to make some cookies. No problem; I have plenty of chocolate chips, and the aforementioned flour.

This may not seem like a challenge to most folks, but I start to get nervous when I'm down to only 9 boxes of tissues, or a mere 6 boxes of cereal. What if I want to make a stir fry and there's no ginger? I have no courgettes (zucchini); is that going to be a problem?

The prospect of not enough groceries at hand can be truly frightening to an obsessive compulsive hoarder like me. Even when I have 3 bottles of apple juice, 15 cans of tomatoes and 3 jars of maple syrup. You never know; lean times may be just around the corner.

We'll see what happens. This could be the first step to recovery. Or else I'll starve.