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Wednesday Food Blogging: Jerusalem Artichoke Soup

This time of year, there are lots of small, knobby vegetables at the local farmers' markets. Some of them are Jerusalem artichokes, also known as sunchokes, despite the fact they appear in winter when sun isn't around much.

Maybe they're called sunchokes because they're a cheerful little vegetable, happy to take on whatever flavour you pair them with. I turned mine into soup, then minced some chives over the top. In my next bowl I added a shake of nutmeg and some truffle oil (an olive oil blend) and that was nice too.

This made enough for a cozy little supper for two, with some bread to go with. (That's how they talk in Wisconsin, dangling prepositions left and right.)

If you're not afraid to spend some quality time with a vegetable peeler, here's how to bring some winter cheer into your life:

Food News, From Our Royal Correspondent

Prince Charles bites off more than he can chew. (Sorry.) Turns out his own Duchy Originals Cornish Pasty has more calories and fat than the Big Macs he wants to ban.

Prince Charles should take a bite outta this: Krispy Kreme launches whole wheat doughnut. (via AE.)

Ice cream as fertility aid? Just for the record, I hate ice cream and had no trouble conceiving. Twice. So take it with a grain of salt, which sounds even more disgusting than the unsalted variety.

Try cooking for dogs. It's easier than you think, says Christie.

The Other KathyF. All KathyF's think alike, don't you know?

Less scrutiny for mad cows. I guess they wouldn't be so mad if y'all didn't eat them.

Barley for biofuels? Will beer prices skyrocket? That's what Grist wants to know. (Notice the quote from USDA cereals analyst Levin Flake. No relation. I don't think.)

What to eat, if you have a prostate: veggies.

What to eat, if you have lungs: veggies and fruit.

"A tasty guide to Scottish food." No really, that's what the link said! (And if they want to defy the other stereotype, they really shouldn't write articles entitled Cheap really can mean cheerful.)

I joined a box scheme last night. Coincidentally, the other day I'd been checking out Abel & Cole's recipes, which look pretty darn good, and yesterday they dropped a flyer in my mail slot. Fate has me in its grip.

Gore, Schmore

I am sick and tired of hearing about Al Gore, and he's not even a candidate.

The latest, a smear campaign raised by a little known right-wing group in Tennessee, exposes the Gores' energy bills for the last two years. Turns out they're about 20 times the national average.

Despite the fact this is a right-wing smear campaign, it still exposes a very inconvenient truth—as far as I know, no one from Gore's camp has denied the energy use, they've merely excused it as being from green sources. Experts tell us, and tell Al Gore, that there's no way we can halt global warming without a serious conservation effort, combined with a commitment to renewable non-carbon sources of energy. And don't even start about carbon offsets—they're nothing more than enviro-indulgences for rich people.

Unfortunately, once again the liberal blogosphere has jumped up en masse to defend its own, yet I see nothing defensible about a $30k energy bill. While that emperor isn't entirely naked, he's not exactly wearing a fine Fair Trade cotton suit either.

Al Gore is probably a lot more committed to saving the environment than I am, but he's doing a piss poor job of it in his real life. Remember that old saying about how it's harder for a rich man to get into heaven? Well, it's harder for a rich man to save energy too, especially when they're not willing to make a few lifestyle changes, like giving up carbon-rich meat and the heated swimming pool.

Over the weekend, we put in a couple of energy efficient light bulbs. At £10 a pop, they're not at all cost efficient. It's much easier, and cheaper, to turn off the lights and close off the rooms we're not using. I suspect Al and Tipper could do the same in their Tennessee mansion. They could use the money they save to fund a green campaign, or—hey, here's an idea!—make a movie about global warming.

Just a tip, Al.

Gone Fishing

It was a gorgeous day today, so we went on a fishing expedition:

Nothing beats having your own stream for fishing!

Whoa! What's this?!

Caught one!

Happiness: a dog with an unlimited supply of water and sticks.

"Lost" at UNM's Sommer's Gallery

Daughter Number One's photo exhibit "Lost" is up for one more week at UNM's John Sommers Gallery. If you're anywhere near Albuquerque and would like to see the end result of five years of university education, check it out.

Details: Monday-Friday, 9-5 or closing reception 5-7 on Friday. The John Sommers Gallery is on the second floor of the art building, which is to the west of Popejoy Hall. Walk toward the tree in the middle, and you'll see big glass windows into the foyer of the art office. The Sommers is through the foyer and the door to the left.

The exhibit comes down on Saturday. Sadly, we won't be able to make it over. This is one of those times it sucks to be an ex-pat.

More photos below.

Babel, Baybel, Read Your Bible

The other day on the news they were talking about Microsoft's patent abuse. Except they weren't talking about "patents" they were discussing "pay-tents".

It turns out long vowels are more popular here than short vowels (or wee vowels, as they have in Scotland). I've also learned the British have a problem with too much "mee-thane" instead of "methane" and women have something called "ee-strogen" and when that runs out they go through "the mee-nopause".

It makes you understand what Moses was talking about in Genesis:

7 "Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another's speech."

8 So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of the whole earth; and they stopped building the city.

9 Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of the whole earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of the whole earth (Genesis 11).

Which is why tonight you may need a pronunciation guide to the Oscars, depending on which side of the  Atlantic you're watching from.

The movie Baybel is popular over here, but the movie Babel may win the Oscar over there.

Add to Onlywire

Friday Sheep Blogging

Baa, Baa, Cloned Sheep just doesn't have the same ring to it.

Can you pick out the cloned sheep?

Neither can I. But today is the 10th anniversary of the arrival of Dolly the Cloned Sheep. She became a media star, and then died young. Oh wait, wrong link. Here you go.

Obviously, these sheep near Radnage aren't clones—some have black faces, some have white, and one, well, one doesn't seem to fit in at all.

And that's as it should be.

Cloud Cover

When I unloaded my camera after my walk yesterday, I noticed the overhanging clouds in this photo. They seem foreboding, though the worst thing we encountered on our hike was a lot of thick mud.

And three brutal hills.

You can't see it in the photo, but in the distance we saw the windmill from the film version of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

If You're Serious About that Novel...

I was very fortunate when I lived in Albuquerque to have a supportive group of writing friends, and even more fortunate that those friends included some extremely talented writers and teachers. One of those friends is giving a fiction writing workshop on March 24 in Santa Fe called The Purposeful Writer: Explorations in Fiction.

The brochure from Wordharvest describes the course better than I could:

Master teacher Laura Baker shares her "story box" technique to help fiction writers at all levels move from idea to words on paper, or go to greater creative depths with their work. In this day-long workshop participants will learn to enhance their storytelling skills, create compelling characters and increase the novel's emotional resonance. The workshop starts with story ideas and Baker's unique story box system, and explores theme, motivation and structure to build solid fiction on the bedrock of the writers' interests and talents. Writing exercises, interspersed throughout the day, will help students find ideas and material to incorporate into their work. Baker's approach takes an end-run around waiting for inspiration.

Co-creator of the popular Discovering Story Magic writing workshops, Baker is the author of suspense and romantic suspense novels set in the Southwest. From her first release, Baker's books have garnered critical acclaim and an impressive list of national award nominations including the National Reader's Choice Award and the RITA. Her nonfiction articles on writing have been published in Writer's Digest, the RWR, and numerous newsletters across the country.

If you live in the area and are interested in learning more about fiction writing, or are waiting for the Muse to visit you, you need to go to this workshop. Laura is very familiar with muses, and she can help you contact yours.

If you don't live in the area, call your favorite airline or Amtrak (I think they go near Santa Fe). What you'll learn will make it worth the trip, I promise you.

And while you're there, you might want to check out the UFO Symposium in Aztec. I'm sure there's a muse or two hanging out amongst the little green men.

Wednesday Food Blogging: Baked White Bean and Rosemary Spread with Focaccia

On Sunday we were invited to a friend's house for drinks. I offered to bring a snack, but of course all the stores were closed, so I had to rely on pantry staples.

The situation called for bean dip. And if you're serving Baked White Bean and Rosemary Spread, of course you need focaccia bread to go with it. Fortunately I had some flour and rock salt, and the day I run out of olive oil is the day you can rest assured I'm resting in peace. 

All I needed were a couple of hours for the dough to rise, and another hour to punch it down, let it rise again, and bake that baby. I used my time wisely. I cleaned the living room, washed a couple of loads of clothes, and prepared the bean spread.

My friend served a sparkling Spanish wine (non-Champagne) with a splash of cassis (blackcurrent liqueur), and we devoured the bread, slathered with bean dip, some olives, and stuffed cherry peppers. We had a divine time.

Spur of the moment invitations are so nice, don't you think?

Instructions below, for both the focaccia as well as the bean spread. Bon appetit.

(This recipe has been edited for clarity.)

Food News, Lenten Edition

Give it up for Lent.

Thank goodness, carbs don't cause colon cancer.

Sheep rustlers. Yes, that's what I said.

Cheap eats in London.

101 reasons why I'm a vegetarian.

Guess who's coming to dinner, er, the Agricultural Outlook Forum?

What to eat: flavonoids and lignans.

What to drink: McDonald's coffee. And, of course, Armagnac. No, the French aren't stupid.

Food fact of the week:

In the U.S., animals are fed more than 80 percent of the corn we grow and more than 95 percent of the oats. The world's cattle alone consume a quantity of food equal to the caloric needs of 8.7 billion people—more than the entire human population on Earth.

Deja Vu All Over Mardi Gras

Today I was entertaining a friend from America, and I suggested we have lunch at the Royal Standard. Later I realized it was the second Fat Tuesday in a row I've spent at the haunted pub.

Weird, huh?

Anyway, we had an interesting lunch, aside from the atmosphere. We talked about politics, American style. Both of us are convinced we've only seen the tip of the iceberg, to borrow a pre-global warming cliché. There's a lot more going on in the Bush administration than the public is aware—and what we do know is bad enough. Signing statements, fired DOJ lawyers, the stealth-of-night repeal of posse comitatus—where's it all leading, we wondered, wedging our fears between morsels of pie and chips.

I'm sure it wasn't the first time conspiracies were discussed at the Royal Standard.

Hopefully, this time we were on the side of the winners, not the losers.

Presidents Day

eRobin posted a clip of Tim Ryan, D-OH, speaking in the House of Representatives about the escalation. He points out that the administration responsible for the lack of body armor, etc. is not likely to do it right this time either.

It was the last line that got me, where he rephrases the words of Donald Rumsfeld:

"You go to war with the president you have, you don't go to war with the president you wish you had."

WDIK Answers Your Questions!

The other day KathyR at Everybody Knows asked me a question:

Besides family and foodstuffs, what do you miss most (if anything) about living in the USofA? And are you ever coming back?

I've been thinking hard on this, stumped for an answer since she eliminated the two obvious choices: food and family. I was going to go with convenience, or customer service, which there is a decided lack of here, but those are concepts, not things.

So today I hit on it: thick socks. It's impossible to find thick socks here. There are plenty of thin, fashionable socks, but thick thirsty socks that you can wear with sensible shoes and hiking boots? No, for that you have to catch a flight to JFK.

I was shopping with a friend in London one day, an American who's lived here longer than me, and she told me she flies to New York every year to buy socks. We offer to buy socks for each other, whenever one of us is heading back to the States.

The last question is easier to answer. We were originally scheduled to be here three years, but we recently learned it will be five. So, with two and a half years under our belt, we're at the half way point. Me, I'm perfectly willing to stay longer, except for the sock thing.

Someone ought to start a sock exchange.

Artsy, Fartsy

I got tagged for a meme on the arts by John from Myopia, so here it is.

Name a book that you want to share so much that you keep giving copies away.
This is tough. I don't give a lot of books away, not because I'm stingy but because they keep coming back. Like that copy of The Jameses, a biography I picked up on a remainder table in 1991, when remaindered books were all I could afford. I never read it, since I really wasn't that interested in the Jameses in the first place. I'm pretty sure I gave it away several times to charity book sales but I saw it just the other day in a pile of books I've been meaning to give away.

I've given away a lot of fiction paperbacks over the years, to friends, who've promptly forgotten them almost as soon as I did. So that probably doesn't count either.

But there is one book I gave away recently, that hasn't come back. You can have it too: The Bird Flu Book.

Name a piece of music that changed the way you listen to music.
This one's easy. Anything from the 90s alternative music scene. I had been turned off by the musical wasteland of the eighties, clinging to Bowie and Queen and the odd spark here and there (i.e., Fine Young Cannibals). Then I tuned in one day to WMAD in Madison, a new alternative-rock format station (that's since turned into a country-western station). I listened non-stop, loving the new-to-me music. I'd spent the last few years raising toddlers and listening to this band named Disney. But suddenly my lost twenty-something years re-appeared. I didn't "lose my religion" so much as find another. I went to Depeche Mode concerts dressed in the angstiest garment I owned (a black wool blazer), showed off my kid's Michael Stipe imitation (it was spot on), and turned up Pearl Jam so loud our cocker spaniel went deaf. I remember Dramarama's Work For Food seemed especially insightful at the time. Blind Melon made me laugh; Pearl Jam's Black made me mellow, back when I drank too much coffee. Live's Mental Jewelry made me think.

Music turned visual in the nineties with MTV and VH1, something that appealed to me, made me connect with the artists in a way I hadn't before. I liked the way Scott Weiland crooned, the way Kurt Cobain screamed, the way Eddie Vedder shook his long hair. And I liked that Michael Stipe wrote lyrics that were meaningless—a deliberate response to the sappy emotive lyrics of Manilow and his descendants, the boy bands.

Now I dig Snow Patrol and the Killers instead of REO Speedwagon and The Little Mermaid, but I'm no longer as into music as I was in the nineties—Desert Island Discs is my most musical moment of the week. Though I'm probably the only forty-something I know who can remember exactly what she was doing when she learned Kurt died.

Name a film you can watch again and again.
I've already said there are only a few films I'd watch more than once. Life is Beautiful, About a Boy, Boys on the Side, Fight Club (though I don't talk about Fight Club!) and Lady and Tramp are the few I can think of. I also watched The Way of the Gun twice and highly recommend it, because violence in films is so underrated.

Of those films, the only one I've actually watched "again and again" is Life is Beautiful. ("Buon giorno, Principessa!") Sometimes I watch it in English, sometimes in Italian. It was on Sky Movies just the other night, and I realized the British subtitles are slightly different from the American. (There's a queue instead of a line to get on the train.)

Name a performer for whom you suspend all disbelief.
Martin Sheen. I had to suspend a lot of disbelief to believe that a man that short could be elected president.

Name a work of art you would like to live with.
Anything at the Tate Britain. Or maybe Stubb's Whistlejacket.

Name a work of fiction that penetrated your real life.
This is confusing. What is meant by "penetrated"? How real is my real life? And what is fiction except a playful reenactment of real life anyway?

There was Little Women, which my mother took away from me because I moped around so much after Beth died. There was also Edie on the Warpath, about a twelve-year old suffragette, which turned me into a pre-teen rebel. But now I read fiction with half an eye toward its structure, and it no longer has the power to penetrate.

Name a punch line and/or a sight gag that always makes you laugh.
I already did that once this week. The scene in About a Boy where Hugh Grant sings Killing Me Softly. He kills me. Softly.

I'm tagging everyone for this meme. Go ahead.

Friday Cow Blogging

Cows in a lane.

These cows were walking down a narrow country lane in the Chilterns, not far from the Thames. They appreciated the fact that January was the warmest on record, though that it was due in part to their farts was lost on them.

Cows don't spend much time thinking about global warming, it turns out. (Neither do many humans.)

Googling from the Hill

Yesterday Sitemeter informed me this blog had a visitor from house.gov, which is not that unusual—I used to do a fair bit of political blogging. They'd googled 'washington post "what will history say?"" and ended up here, at a piece I wrote about my adventures in time travel. (My predictions have so far not panned out—Dick Cheney, despite committing a weapons offense that would land most of us in jail, has stubbornly clung to his position as Bush's conscience VP.)

There's no way to tell who on the Hill was googling, but I did notice this today at Raw Story, headlined: "Rep.: History, fact will not be kind to war's decision-makers."

I suspect I know which rep's office went a-googling yesterday. Ha.

Meanwhile, someone at the Pentagon was searching for lamb images. I don't even want to imagine why.

Ch-ch-ch-changes!

Observant readers will notice I've gone and fiddled with the design of WDIK? a bit. I finally made the switch to a san-serif typeface for the posts, after wondering for a while if online reading was easier with a san-serif type. I know from my DTP days that serif typefaces are easier to read in print, but as far as I was aware, no studies have been done on ease of reading online.

So I'm doing my own study. What do you think? Easier to read without the serifs decorating each letter? Does the word "serif" make your eyes glaze over?

There are also readability studies, incidentally, which firmly establish the minimum/maximum line length for ease of reading (it varies according to the size of the typeface). Too long, and your eyes can't follow the line across the page. Too short, and your eyes get tired bopping from line to line. These studies apply to online reading too, and when I see blogs or websites with long lines of type stretching from side to side, I tend to not read them. FYI.

I also took off some of the sidebar doodads that may have been making loading slow. Anyone notice if the site loads faster? It seems to on my computer.

You probably won't notice this either, but I added a tool line right over there, to the left, between the left sidebar and the main posts. Oddly, it doesn't extend to the bottom of the page, only to the end of the sidebar.

If I haven't lost your attention yet, I would like to also draw your attention to a recent update to an old post. I made vegetarian tetrazzini again, and this time took a better photo. Although once again I couldn't get it snapped before I got the dish on the table, they were that eager to dig in! So I heated up leftovers the next day and took my time styling a photo. But not too much time.

Anything else I should change around here?

Four Years Later, We Still Haven't Supported The Troops

Today is the anniversary of worldwide protests against the invasion of Iraq. On February 15, 2003 millions of people all over the world (including my daughter in New York) took to the streets in protest of what they knew would result in hell on earth for American and coalition troops as well as innocent Iraqi citizens.

They were right, though no one could have foreseen just how much hell was unleashed by those bombers strafing Baghdad.

Here's the story of one man's personal hell. Sadly, it could have been avoided.

STEWART, Minn. -- It took two years of hell to convince him, but finally Jonathan Schulze was ready.

On the morning of Jan. 11, Jonathan, an Iraq war veteran with two Purple Hearts, neatly packed his US Marine Corps duffel bag with his sharply creased clothes, a framed photo of his new baby girl, and a leather-bound Bible and headed out from the family farm for a 75-mile drive to the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in St. Cloud, Minn.

Family and friends had convinced him at last that the devastating mental wounds he brought home from war, wounds that triggered severe depression, violent outbursts, and eventually an uncontrollable desire to kill himself, could not be drowned in alcohol or treated with the array of antianxiety drugs he'd been prescribed.

And so, with his father and stepmother at his side, he confessed to an intake counselor that he was suicidal. He wanted to be admitted to a psychiatric ward.

But, instead, he was told that the clinician who prescreened cases like his was unavailable. Go home and wait for a phone call tomorrow, the counselor said, as Marianne Schulze, his stepmother, describes it.

When a clinical social worker called the next day, Jonathan, 25, told again of his suicidal thoughts and other symptoms. And then, with his stepmother listening in, he learned that he was 26th on the waiting list for one of the 12 beds in the center's ward for post-traumatic stress disorder sufferers.

Four days later, on Jan. 16, he wrapped a household extension cord around his neck, tied it to a beam in the basement, and hanged himself.

Those who originally supported the war haven't done enough to support those they sent to fight it. It's easy to send soldiers off to war when you haven't been yourself, when your loved ones aren't likely to make up a recruiter's quota, when your "other priorities" include making the world safe for your energy buddies to make lots of money.

It's a lot harder to appropriate money for VA mental health wards in the U.S., especially when your mind's in Iran, on that next war you want to fight. (You and whose troops?)

Maybe it's time for another protest.
(via)

Wednesday Food Blogging: Vegetarian Gumbo with Smoked Tofu

Mardi Gras, next Tuesday. You will want to parade and eat gumbo.

Forget Valentines, it's Mardi Gras that's the real February foodie holiday around my house. And Mardi Gras means gumbo, or maybe jambalaya, or some other New Orleans treat.

Gumbo is a real family affair around here, or "dumbo" as my youngest daughter used to call it. My husband likes to make the roux, without which no gumbo is gumbo. It's a heat transfer experiment: too much heat and the whole thing could burn. Too little and it never turns to a mahogany color, the way gumbo roux should. (There are other kinds of roux, as well, used in less intense dishes. A white bechamel sauce is made from a basic white roux, for instance.) All a roux is is equal parts oil and flour. And some fat-conscious people have even browned flour without the oil. I can't vouch for that, but go ahead if you must.

Traditionalists will argue over the addition of tomatoes or tomato sauce to gumbo. I like to add some tomato products, especially with vegetarian gumbo, where veggies are the stars. This version uses smoked tofu instead of the chicken or duck carcass typically thrown into the pot, but you could also use vegetarian sausage or some other veggie product.

The other vital ingredient is okra (the name “gumbo” is thought to have derived from the word for “okra” in various Bantu dialects from southern and central Africa) though some say that file powder substitutes for the mucilaginous thickening effects of okra. No, it doesn't, so use okra, and filé, if you have it. (Filé powder is sold in most U.S. supermarkets in the spice section, and is made  from ground sassafras leaves.)

I bet you didn't know there was so much to know about gumbo. And I haven't even got good and started—we could talk about the many cultural distinctions of Cajun and Creole foods, but suffice it to say, do not underestimate the Cajuns. Otherwise the Cajun juju will get you for sure.

Here are some instructions for making gumbo. (See updated notes at the end for easy substitutions for smoked tofu, which isn't often available in the US.)