Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Kitchen Tips for the Holidays

Shout out to +George Strayline on Facebook: yeah, I do this kind of homebrew AND I do that kind of homebrew, too.  You should see how I handle a Weller gun, OM.  How about a lemon meringue pie browned with a propane blow torch? While I'm soldering a radiator with it? ...erm...the torch, not the pie.  

I hope you've saved your scrap guywire because I'm going to suggest to you the following: the next time you go on a DXpedition that takes you longer than 30 minutes to drive to, scrub ya a fair sized spud, wrap it in foil, and secure that puppy to your vehicle engine's exhaust manifold with that guywire and make sure you take some salsa with you on your trip because by the time you drive up to the site, lunch will be ready.

Yeah. Guywire. An exhaust manifold is one place that duct tape won't work. Scraping that offa there will not go well, and it will not smell pretty. Oh--and I don't climb towers anymore, sorry.   ^_^

Edited to add wise words just posted by George S. on Facebook:
Just a reminder for all the Black Friday shoppers: Anything you buy this week will be obsolete next week. You've been warned 

No doubt a good number of you are food shopping with T-day in mind, and probably looking ahead to Christmas and New Year's Eve, too.  Let's face it, folks--we party most of the cold months away.  You may think you're on top of things by planning far ahead and cooking ahead when you think you can get away with it, but there are a lot of folks waiting for the good food sales when stores figure everybody has already bought their goodies and they need to clear the inventory.

That last bit has changed because turkeys are also held over for Christmas and New Year's and promoted for those, and that's why we haven't seen good turkey clearance sales at the last minute like we used to.  Vendors are intent on marketing turkeys all year now, so forget about it.

People who plan ahead so that their T-day is basically on time will occasionally be beset with kitchen emergencies and salvage operations when the plans and/or recipes go wrong at the last second, too.  You can bet that kitchen veterans have a Plan B in mind to salvage any Plan A that goes wrong, and when preparing stuff from scratch (as opposed to preparing stuff out of boxes and cans), more stuff can go wrong than won't, but fact remains that scratch stuff beats the helloutta canned/boxed stuff when you can pull that off.



As I go through the annual routines in my own kitchen, I'll keep updating this post as I run into kitchen situations for everybody else's benefit, but with the caveat that I've been a kitchen veteran so long that you're not likely to get an exacting recipe suitable for novices.  When stuff goes wrong or I feel like changing stuff, I usually do it on the fly without measuring devices.  Sorry. ^_^

The first tip I'll present is a vegetable that, after prepping, can be in and out of the oven in 20 minutes, but IF your oven has a broiler element at the top.  Toaster oven/broilers will work, but in smaller quantities. It goes like this, and all ingredient amounts are approximations.

Julienne yams/sweet potatoes, toss in a bowl big enough to accommodate however many you're fixin' to serve.  Drizzle lightly with olive oil; sprinkle with cumin, ginger, hot pepper flakes or powder (easy, now), garlic powder, onion powder and seasoned salt.  Toss until it's all coated.  Preheat the oven for about 400 degrees F, then arrange in single-layer fashion on a cookie sheet.  Throw it under the broiler at a top rack slot and broil 10 minutes.  Remove the cookie sheet, turn the lot over with a spatula and broil another 10 minutes.  You're done, unless you've burnt the lot...in which case you'll have to adjust oven temp and/or rack slot, and all that depends on how thin your julienne is  The thinner, the more apt it is to burn.  Yeah, go ahead and use that food processor to julienne stuff or modify the process to accommodate french fry shapes. Another variation would be to squeeze sprinkles of lime over the lot as it comes out of the oven.

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 Edited to add an olive oil recommendation, if all you're concerned with is flavor.  Pompeian Extra Virgin is the best, in my view. For a milder form with less bite but still has great taste, go for a different grade of Pompeian than Extra Virgin.

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Cheap but exotic fruit cocktail, and you can use some of these ingredients from the can: First fill about 2/3 full a storage bowl, which has a lid (kinda like what Ziplock, Glad, and Rubbermaid sell, or equivalent) with orange juice, and hopefully you will have already bought the following:
pears
reduced price overripe bananas that are still in good shape
grapes, if they're on sale.  If not, forget it.
pineapple chunks, out of a can or not
oranges (and canned mandarin oranges will work)
apples
shredded sweetened coconut

First add as much banana slices (about 1/2 inch thick) and apple chunks as you like, making sure that they're amply submerged by the orange juice.  They'll turn an awful brown if you don't; some types of pears also turn brown, so if you're not sure about that, add them in first too.  Then add as much of the other ingredients (except the grapes) as you fancy, still making sure that the lot remains submerged in orange juice as you go, adding more juice as necessary for that. What you'd want to do with the grapes is split those in half and add just enough grape halves to disperse evenly through the rest of the mix without sinking to the bottom.  If you stir the mixture after you add the grapes, they definitely will sink to the bottom. If you're good at picking out the best mangoes, by all means add them too.

You can serve this cocktail immediately; if you're fixing it up the night before, a nice touch would be to add dried apricot chunks, which will soften up overnight.  It goes well served over pound cake, sponge cake or shortcake.  Throw ice cream on it if you like. Splurge and throw coarsely chopped pecans in it and drizzle a bit of chocolate syrup over what's in the dish you're using to serve it up.  Just squiggle the thing like a haute cuisine restauranteur.  People wanting to go fancy with liqueur, I recommend infusing the cake part with one of the following: anisette, amaretto, CheriSuisse (it's the best but any other cherry-chocolate liquer will do), Grand Marnier if you can afford it, apricot brandy, sherry, spiced rum.  Soak a sugar cube in vodka, place it atop the dish, set a match to it and you've got flambé.  A high octane rum will work, too.  Another variation would be a vanilla wafer garnish.

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 So you want to bake your own bread but you know that using all-purpose flour will result in a dry, hard product but you don't want to use (or can't find, or don't want to pay the extra money for) what's labeled as "bread flour".  In a recipe that produces 2 loaves, use all-purpose as called for except for 1/4 cup of it.  That last 1/4 cup should be corn starch.  Blend that in with your dry flour before you get it wet and you'll be in good shape.  Also, when it's time to knead, don't dust your board with flour either.  Use corn starch.

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 The biggest gripe with roasting one's own turkey at home is the usually dried out white meat.  That's why turkey friers have been big sellers even though they can burn down your house if you're a rookie.  That's a pretty drastic high calorie cure for dry white meat.  So is the tactic that made Butterball famous--injecting fat into the tissue before roasting.  I've tried a number of approaches with different levels of success, and these are the ones that have worked, and some with side effects:


* Roasting bags (no stuffing).  But they retain the juices at the bottom of the bag and the backside of the turkey turns out soggy.  I modified the approach with better success: put the bird in the bag neck first, place the bird in a pot roast type of roasting pan into which I put about 2 inches of water, and then at one corner of the bag near the neck, snipped a small piece of the corner off so that the bag would drain into the bain marie (ahem--the water at the bottom).  The reason for the water at the bottom is to keep the roaster from burning after hours in the oven.  That water will evaporate rather than prevent the bag from draining properly, so it works. Just check that water/broth level periodically to make sure it hasn't dried out, especially if you've added vegetables to it.

* Frequent au naturel basting, no bags, with or without stuffing. Using the fat that's rendered from the bird as it roasts, it's old fashioned but it takes up your day with your leg chained to the oven--you have to baste every half hour.  It'll work as long as you mind your roasting time.

* Starting out with a high oven temperature for the first hour and then reduced to proper temperature the remainder of the roasting time.  Yeah, that'll work, but you still have to baste every half hour after you reduce the temperature.

* Using an egg wash to baste with.  This is one of the best tasting ways to do it; the first baste using 2 eggs mixed with either milk or water does the trick and the golden tone you get from that is unmatchable.  This sort of egg wash works well as a variation on home-made bread, too, actually.  For the turkey, after that first wash with the egg, you can do a standard baste and then another egg baste if you have some wash left over from the first go-round.  Yup--baste every half hour.

* Roast the unstuffed turkey until the white meat is slightly underdone, remove the meat from the bird and roast the rest of the way separately.  Worth doing if you're not the type to make bird presentation at the table the high drama of the day. 

* Give up and just order Chinese take-out.  C'mon, lotsa people do that; Asian restaurants are probably the only ones open on T-day. 

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Going with a semi-formal feast and want to do something a little different with the dinner wine than the usual 150 different labels of Riesling?  Try Rhine with the turkey and just don't tell anybody that's what it is, unless they ask.  It's not bad in the giblet gravy, either.  My favorite all-occasions wine is actually Portuguese: Madeira.  Good at dinner, good with dessert, good all by itself...unless I'm cooking Italian, in which case it's either Chianti in the red sauce, Marsala in the brown sauce, Marsala on the table.  A good Port would work, too; Chianti as a table wine is an acquired taste and is likely to not agree with everybody. An excellent American dessert wine favorite would be Pink Catawba...or, if the dessert is overly sweet, White Catawba.

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 There's nothing so wrong with the greengrocer's brussels sprouts, green beans, aparagus, broccoli that a little lemon juice can't cure.  Leave that bacon out of this--it doesn't help, really.  Marinate fresh green beans and brussels sprouts overnight in brine with a squeeze or two of lemon juice.  Squeeze a bit of lemon juice over steamed broccoli.  When cooking the beans or sprouts, do so with an onion.  Drizzle with olive oil...or...in the case of green beans, with toasted sesame oil you can get from the Asian section of your store.  It also goes well with broccoli.  You don't really need that can of mushroom soup.  You really really don't.

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Suppose that you bought ready-made pie crust and canned pie filling because you really really really wanted a traditional pie for the dinner, but the cat caught his tail in your electric mixer and you had a major setback.  Now what?  Well, how about blintz for dessert?  You might have to go out and buy the cottage cheese and cream cheese for the filling, but you probably have the rest of the ingredients already handy, including the pie filling.  No, the pie shell doesn't work into this one,  but what you could do with that is cut it up into squares for cookies, throw a dab of fruit jam in the middle, fold over opposite two corners, bake, and serve them up as cookies.

For a small container of cottage cheese, use one half of a package of cream cheese, both at room temperature, and cream them together well, then cream in a teaspoon of sugar and a splash of vanilla.  For the crepes, throw together equal parts of flour and pancake mix and add twice as many eggs as you'd put in there for regular pancakes.  Add enough milk until the mixed consistency resembles thin whipping cream.

Thin out the pie filling with a bit of corn syrup and warm this mixture up separately while you griddle up the crepes, on medium low heat, to about 8" disks, then as each disk solidifies (don't brown them yet), place on a plate, put a dollop of cheese filling in the middle, then fold over four ways until the end result resembles a square pillow.  Repeat until you have enough that will fill the griddle comfortably.

Put them back on the griddle and THEN you brown them, folded edges down at first, then flip to brown the top.  Plate them up, spoon some of that warm pie filling topping on the top and voila--blintz.  This topping also works well on cheesecake.  The blintz works best as a last-minute preparation, made (and kept warm) right before dinner is served.  That's about as long as it will keep well at its peak.


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Thank you, Project Gutenberg, for pointing this out via Mental Floss, who got the image from Wiki.  Also from Project Gutenberg: the cookery bookshelf.


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Oh yeah, you got it--I'm just as much a mad scientist in the kitchen as I am in the time machine.  I think fish fingers & custard is a smashing idea, and you, dear reader, still aren't sure if I'm not really an incarnation of "the soufflé girl".


 By the way, I *do* believe in Santa Claus.  And Santa Clara, of course.  And I don't believe in ghosts, either.  Now to throw a little more doubt on this subject: Oswin was involved only with hot soufflés (as a Dalek), and there are also cold soufflés, which people today call "mousse" (if it's made with eggs and not gelatin).  Hot ones are often called puddings, provided that those are made with eggs and not corn starch. Omelets made by separating the eggs first are also soufflés. Me, I'll do all kinds.

Here's a vintage pudding for ya: apple pandowdy.  Grease a casserole dish; toss apple chunks (say about 4 tart apples, or large red crab apples) in a bowl with nutmeg, cinnamon, and sugar (about 1/4 cup for 4 apples), with a dash of salt, a bit of butter (about 2 tablespoons for 4 apples), then put that into the greased casserole dish. Mix up a batch of biscuit dough (sure--cheat with Bisquick,) and put the dough on top of what's in the casserole dish, then bake in a preheated 450 degree oven until it's browned.



UPDATE: It's Wednesday night, 8 pm Central, and I'm all set and ready for tomorrow.  Bring it. 

Ready for the oven
 Stuffing baked separately; no rack; bain marie with celery and carrots; bag corner snipped.  I've also noticed that my goldfinches have returned, looking for the feeder I haven't set out yet.  I call them "my goldfinches" because they return to this yard every winter even though I don't have a feeder set out. So does the hawk that preys on them. But that feeder's going up next; everybody eats well here on T-day.

Don't be so smug, Canadians. You'll get your turn around Christmas, when Dave cooks the turkey for the Vinyl Cafe.  Yeah. I know about Dave. And Morly.
Vinyl Cafe podcasts
And while I'm on the topic of favorite Canadians, here's another one: Terry O'Reilly; The previous title of his program used to be "Age of Persuasion".  It's from that page that I learned that Ron Burgundy agreed to be announcer for a Canadian Olympic curling team. Eh?  Well, any mention of favorite Canadians should never leave out Ian McFarland.  Ever.


UPDATE 2:  I completely forgot to mention that I have a favorite recipe for home made jammy dodgers, and I guess I forgot because I mentioned a version of jammy dodgers when I talked about turning the pie crust into cookies. There's a whole family of cookies called "pie crust cookies" but when made from scratch they usually involve a combination of butter and cream cheese, whereas actual pie crust involves fats like shortening, schmaltz (rendered chicken fat), or lard.

If you want to make jammy dodgers from scratch, try this:

2 3/4 cup sifted flour                           a few grains of salt
1/2 cup heavy cream                            red jam or preserves
1 cup soft butter                                  sugar, to roll the dough out on

Mix flour, cream, salt, and butter well until thoroughly blended.  Chill for several hours until thoroughly cold and firm.  Spread your board with sugar and roll the dough out to about 1/8" thickness and cut out rounds with a biscuit cutter (or similar implement, like a saved and washed vegetable can).  Bake in a 350 degree oven for 8 minutes and then cool the rounds off.  Then just make jam sandwiches out of them and put back on the cookie sheet, 1/2" apart because the jam will melt off a bit, and bake another 2 minutes.  Remove and cool again, trimming whatever jam has dripped off the edges while they're warm. 

A nice touch would be to cut the disks, but in half the disks use some small round thing to cut a center hole so they'd better resemble the Doctor's favorite jammy dodgers, if you like.

I know I don't have to mention this to the people who have known me online over the years, particularly on the debate fora such as Arianna Online, Hypercrites, PBS Discussions (Hi, Bill, Rasmus!) etc. that my tagline (signature) has always been that of a well-known anarchist (hello, Basques!) by the name of Mikhail Bakunin: "I shall continue to be an impossible person so long as those who are now possible remain possible".  Ain't that right, gri. An impossible person--exactly what the Doctor called Oswald in The Rings of Ankhaten, now, isn't it.  I've been a computer geek most of my life, too. And it would be just like me to argue a compelling case to a grand marshal.  By the way, has any other Whovian besides me noticed that the cybermen salute is the same one as the one given by the grand marshal?  I have also noticed that it's an abbreviated form of the Andromedan loyalty salute.  Just sayin'..oh...the TV Doctor never went to Andromeda, did he. But back on the subject...there's one small but significant problem--I never would have called the Doctor's screwdriver a "spanner". Now THIS...

...is a proper ultrasonic pipe wrench.
(Alright alright alright--"chairs are useful, too".)

Well, I see that gri got taken offline yet again, so googling "grivitation" will give you the wrong result.  No doubt he'll keep trying.  I did manage to find an old post of his on Donation Coder, so the gri I'm talking about will look like this, on an SMF forum. He's on no other kind.

Here's a screenshot of an old post on Speak Oklahoma, showing my age-old signature/tagline:

Both boards are Simple Machines Forums.  It's the latter board I helped with the coding on.
(I added the above pic to my sig on SMF forums because of all the languages it makes its software to handle, it doesn't handle American Sign Language. Translation:  "SMF can't ASL")
What?  It turns out that ASL is very French. Ish.



For the people who do the other homebrew, the people who are usually ham radio operators, the people who buy brand new electronics gizmos only to brazenly take them apart as soon as they get 'em home, here's a heads-up on a good source of parts: the Dollar General holiday solar path light.  As a path light it's rubbish, but what's inside is a metal hydride button battery, not NiCad. 1.2v/40mAh NiMH, says the attached tag. I see that the 4-legged chip is a XY805.

The circuit card has discrete components as opposed to a singular IC blob as has been the case on the 97¢ solar lamps at Walmart which also contain a 3/4AA NiCad inside.  You may correctly conclude that the inductor that works with the 4-legged lamp chip is the appropriate value for working a LED off of metal hydride buttons, and it's not the same as what's usable for NiCads.  The 4-legged chip is one that is also metal hydride friendly, as opposed to those that work with the NiCads, which might not. The metal hydride button batteries are worth a buck apiece just on their own, IMHO, but so are the chips and the inductors.

That's not a resistor, that's an inductor, and every solar lamp with discrete components like this has one, and only one, of those.  This is the Dollar General lamp. Below, the chip is a standard ANA618 controller, works best with NiCad. The one-coil rule is true of the stainless steel lamps purchased from Aldi's--except one.
Here is indisputable evidence that an under-employed techie was hired for this assembly job.  This is what you'd do to soup up a lamp to higher brightness...but...it also shortens the hours of illumination, as it drain the battery faster. A standard lamp has a short illumination period without this mod, so this also tells you that this is an inductor of a value (and wattage, apparently) that is overdesigned, which makes this lamp desirable for parts, too. But as a lamp, it sucks.
I've souped up path lights before with different values of inductors, and if you brighten them too much, they'll also drain the resident battery too much to operate successfully off of the next-day's charge.  Insofar as the chip functions as a voltage doubler, I've found that they can and do work off of up to 6 volts source (6v DC doubles, but to 12 volts AC), and so when you wire the battery holder to accommodate an external, larger battery, it makes a great bright emergency lantern--IF the LED can handle the extra.  Some resident LEDs can handle it, and some can't; some have smoked with this modification, so mind the max IE on the LEDs you use with this.  And nothing says ya can't gang the solar cells, either.

Black Friday UPDATE: a recommendation for other like-minded mad scientists, as I'm staying in to catch this myself as I do every year via NPR's Science Friday program. The Ig Nobel Prize Awards...of which this one is the 23rd First.  I should say that Doctor Who would approve greatly of these sciences, and note ye well that the Improbable Research does have a Who tie-in, in the form of Douglas Adams, who was one of the writers for Who during the Tom Baker era.  The nature of the tie-in?  Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which involved intergalactic travel by use of the Improbability Drive, an invention which required the Brownian motion of an authentic cup of English tea, for which synthetic tea substitute was always inferior enough to not work at all in such a drive.  All hail, Doug Adams!

And with Doug, there's also a shortwave radio tie-in, as it happens.  The first time I became acquainted with Hitchhiker's Guide was, in fact, as a series broadcast by the BBC World Service on shortwave, well before the movie was shown on PBS.  And you betcha I went to see the updated version of it on the big screen.  Doug, thanks for all the fish.  Now we have Vogons running Washington.




Sunday, November 24, 2013

Iran's latest developments and the players

It's a development like this that I was waiting for, before blogging about the Middle East again.  I know that the people who kept visiting my earlier blog posts about this were probably let down, but here is the new one and I thank you for your continuing interest in my posts.

The the deal that was signed with Iran in Geneva on Saturday is all over the Sunday talking-head shows today, with "the usual suspects" howling exaggerations (like demanding total dismantling) over it.  Still, even the line of the howlers has changed significantly, in this regard: Netanyahu, for example, was howling for total dismantlement and is now howling about just military dismantlement.  That'll work.  Republicans that now have a stance to Netanyahu's right are the ones whose howls are tone-deaf.  Still, Netanyahu's proclamation that this makes Iran more dangerous is what renders Iran's claim that Israel is some kind of rabid dog to the ear of the critic to have credibility, exaggeration though it may be.  This isn't helping.  Neither Netanyahu nor Iran forwards their respective cases one whit with this level of nonsense.

Worse, though, is the hardline positioned by rabid dog Republicans to Netanyahu's right, as they will affect the U.S. position eventually.  If they held any kind of sway, then that would be a disaster, clearly.

UPDATE: I just got a challenge question that requires response.  The question: why should an oil-rich nation like Iran be permitted to use nuke power at all?  Answer: global warming. Duh.  No nation should be forcibly condemned to be confined to only fossil fuels for energy. I'm dead certain that the international petroleum lobbies are salivating at any prospects of forcing a nation to use nothing but fossil fuels for which they'd be richly paid for drilling/mining, but it's the petroleum lobby that poses the next best reason why limited nuke power should be permitted even to Iran--the first and foremost reason being global warming.

UPDATE 2: It's just been brought to my attention that MSNBC's Rachel Maddow did some excellent reporting on the behind-the-scenes negotiations that, per her report, was not just about Iran's nuclear capabilities but also its proxy involvement in Syria. She also did a recap of relations with Iran going back to Reagan's Iran-Contra scandal. Those of you who want further details, I do refer you now to the Rachel Maddow blog. Developments involving Afghanistan have become interesting, too, regarding the end-run made around Karzai via direct dealing with Afghanistan's Loya Jirga.  A president that has to answer to the governing body elected by the people is indeed appropriate and I'm sure Karzai doesn't think so, with Karzai having his attitude in common with Egypt's Morsi.  All of these things are definitely worth keeping an eye on

In terms of how Islamic governments have functioned historically, even under the Caliphate Empire, tribal law (sharia) was never supposed to dominate other tribes, which each had their own sharia. This imposition of Wahab sharia over non-Wahab tribes is historically unislamic; this is the reason why the House of Saud in Arabia has stood on shaky ground at its inception and is now standing on ever-thinning ground, unable to stand without international support particularly without the support of the U.S. and Britain.

It is a plain and simple fact to all reasonable Muslims that the success of the spread AND the flourishing of the Caliphate Empire was because of the local governments by different tribal sharia, not because of the central government.  Also contributing to this was the spoils system set forth by the central government and adopted from Muawiya's practice of spreading Islam across the north African coast. Wahabs who proclaim they're fighting for a new Caliphate empire while imposing Wahab tenets on others simply have no realistic grasp on Islamic history whatsoever

Some months ago, a question about the difficulties of governing by the Incas came up on Yahoo Answers, and the answer I gave for that is a universal truth for all empires: the more repressive the central government gets, the higher the price gets for executing that repression gets.  This was true of the Alexandrian Empire all the way through the current governing practices of the Sauds and Syria's Bashar al-Assad, and was even the case of imperial Rome after it had abandoned its republic days as it levied ever-increasing taxes to support that repression.  

Repression is not sustainable no matter who commits it.  The Caliphate Empire was a success as long as Shiites lived by their own tribal sharia and the Sunnis lived by theirs; this was a co-operation that lasted until the Turks came in, in the 13th century, after the Moguls flattened Baghdad, dominated repressively, and re-ignited that Sunni-Shiite schism which had been resolved with the peace accord at the conclusion of the Day of the Camel.  Whether under Omayyad government or Abbasid government, the Caliphate Empire held together and flourished because the primary power was tribally local sharia.  The Roman Empire was most successful when it was a genuine republic.

The Sauds rose to power pretending to be Islamic when they weren't, and the same is true for Al Qaida, and the same is true for Morsi. Allah is diminished by these who claim that their rule is his will; what transpires now is insha'allah beyond the control of any mere mortal or any collection of mere mortals who claim Allah's favor.  

Any who claim that their side is what Allah wills and that Allah's honor depends on bloodshed committed by mere mortals appear to my eye as blasphemous.  If Muslims intend to be the best representatives of Islam to the non-believer, then it would benefit Islam to call Islamists on their blasphemy, for they are the worst people to represent Islam to anybody, believer or non-believer.  

It's on the souls of Muslim parents when they send their children schools that teach blasphemy and idolatry under the disguise of Islam.  The Holy Koran is holy as a recitation, not as a book, and to revere the book (the Quran in inferior form) is idolatry. Christians who defile books titled "The Holy Quran" are just stupid--but so are the Muslims who kill fellow human beings of Allah's creation over an inferior object of Man's creation. 

Should good devout Muslims suffer for the blasphemous idolaters to be the representatives of Islam to the world? Pose this question to your cleric and demand his fatwah on it.  Yes, I am aware of previous fatwas on various questions regarding Islamists, but not on this question in particular, nor on the questions of whether these things are ruled to be actual blasphemy and actual idolatry.  Seriously--Islamists appear to be in need of a formal declaration that their de facto blasphemy is blasphemy actual, as well as their de facto idolatry.

Is the Quran destroyed because a book or even a bunch of books were destroyed? No.

Is the book desecrated just because the written words, without their prescribed recitation present, are in that book? No because the word "desecrated" presupposes that the book was sacred, and no book is sacred without being idolized; Allah did not make that book.  

Is the book which contains the written words of the Quran without their prescribed inflections in place, an inferior form of the Quran? Yes. The Quran is proper and most perfect when recited with inflections in their proper places as the Prophet (PBUH) recited it; what's in the book is more arbitrary.

Is one tribe's sharia inferior to another tribe's sharia just because it's different from Wahab sharia? No, because no cleric in the Caliphate Empire thought so. The precedent set for that answer originates from the Caliphate Empire itself even as it was run by the first four Caliphs.

These questions cry out for widespread universal fatwahs because Islamists ignore all of them, teaching what they claim is Islam which is in conflict with the Prophet's Islam (PBUH).

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 There have been other developments this weekend which pertain to the Middle East, like the Miami Book Fair International (I followed that with great interest for the entirety it was broadcast on CSPAN2 on Saturday..."program number 316330-1" on their website; it's been broken down into 10 separate videos HERE and the specific Middle East panel's video is HERE) and there was a broadcast this morning on Radio Australia that I want to cover, so I'll publish this entry now and add those items later in the day. (UPDATE: Sorry, but that broadcast still hasn't turned up as of Dec. 6 and I'm considering that one a total loss. Will edit this post to remove other references to it. Dang and a half)

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It may be slow going, though--working from 2 different weather forecasts, one of which forecasts snow and the other, a "wintry mix" which includes sleet, which contains the threat of power/service outages again.  And again, will just have to see what actually transpires and work around that.

Previous pertinent post regarding Iran is THIS one; pertinent to Syria and remaining situations in the Middle East and the history thereof are THIS one, THIS one, THIS one, and THIS one.  These would be more pertinent to the discussion of what transpired at the Miami Book Fair.


Syria: BBC Newsnight aired a story of a British jihadist in Syria. Speaking of Newsnight, GAWD I miss Aaron Brown.  Go Sun Devils!

Saturday UPDATE, Lebanon: The sectarianism mentioned here and elsewhere on this blog has surfaced in the Lebanese town of Tripoli, says Al Jazeera English (and pretty much most of Twitter, in that region). As I've mentioned earlier in this post and elsewhere, the differences between Shiite and Sunni were resolved centuries ago until the invasions of the Moguls, Seljuks and Uygurs in the 13th century, a time when sharia law meant something other than what it means today among the Islamists. In Lebanon, here we go again.  Yesterday, I heard about unrest in Tunisia, the place that sparked the whole Arab Spring thing, a thing not confined to Arabs.  So, my Muslim friends--are we looking not at unity but at Balkanization?  I hope not the latter.  Consider carefully, and consider the value of reversing that old Reaganism into Verify, Then Trust.

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Happy Turkey Day levity: Claralinguistics.

Back in the day when the closest thing to an Internet was the BBS (Bulletin Board Service) and networks such as FIDO, RIME, U'NI net, WWIV, and such, I came up with Claralinguistics as a satiric answer to Lee Rizor's Truely Big Dic (tionary).  And it goes like this:

Clarabell
Clarabic
Clarabill
Clarable
Claraboiled

Clarabolate
Clarabolic
Claraborate
Claracal error
Claraceous

Clarachord
Claracter
Claracteristic
Clarachute
Claracity

Claraconda
Claraction
Claractivity
Claractionable
Claracuticle

Claradestine
Claradiction
Claradid
Claradio
Clarado TX

Claradactyl
Claradox
Claradventure
Claraeon Hotel
Clarastatics

Claraesthenics
Clarafe
Clarafficient
Claraffluent
Clarafully

Clarafornia
Clarafy
Clarafication
Claragated cardboard
Clarageenan

Claragraph
Claraguay
Claragulation
Clarahelion
Claraholic

Claraiope
Clarakeet
Claralastic
Claralateral
Clarateral damage

Claralegal
Claralily
Claralinguistics
Claralingual
Clarallel

Clarallelogram
Claralition
Claramatic
Clarambulance
Clarambulation

Claramel
ClaraMia
Claramie WY
Claramity
Claramityville Horror

Claramount
Claramount Pictures
Claramutual
Claramutuel
Claramour

Claran Wrap
Claranara sauce
Clarance 13' 9"
Clarance Sale
Clarandicular

Claranecdote
Claranet
Clarannuil
Clarannual
Claranthemum

Claranetics
Claranitis
Claranormal
Claranthesis

Claranthesis
Claranthetical
Clarantedote
Claranoid
Clarantics

Clarantis, preying
Clarantula
Clarapheral vision
Claraphrase
Claraphonics

Claraphract
Clarapet
Claraplastic
Clarapractor
Clararado (CO)

Clararchy
Clarascope
Clarasdale horses
Claraseptic
Clarasil cream

Clarasite
Clarasol
Claraspondence
Clarassment
Clarassential

Clarasitic
Clarassistance
Clarastatic
Clarastic
Clarasthetics

Clarastine
Clarastrophic
Clarastocrat
Clarat wine
Clarathletics

Claratable organization
Claratalian
Claratin
Clarassinine
Claratholic

Claratlantic
Claratlantis
Claratribe
Claratrooper
Claratulations

Claraty
Claravac
Claravan
Claravoyant
Claravoyeur

Claraway seed
Clarawax
Clarawinkle
Clarax bleach
Claraxecutive

Claraxecutor
Claraxicon (thank you, George S.!)

CAST OF CLARACTERS:

Claramity Jane
Clarapatra
Clarance of Arabia
Clarance Welk
Jumpin' Clarasaphat
Mount Clararat
Yessir Clarafat
Knight Clarant



Guess what...while rummaging around thru a dusty box of old papers, I ran into a list of other Claracters, but not with "Clara" in 'em.  Here ya go:

Emineggs
Terri Aqui
General Bulbous Bulbous Garlic
Yessir Airafart
Arial Mysharona

Condom Leaseaprice
Knute Gutwrench, General Manager
Mallowmar Gawdawfully
The Imperial Princess Margarine
Ronwald Bumsgelt

Mondopizza Slice
Shine-o-mized Pizzaz
Gorge Scrubyadub Brushfuller
Slick Painey
Donwood Rumstead

Blighterman
Will Grates
Santana Nirvana Banana Lana (with apologies to Gilda Radner)
Endrun Corporation
Phatt Blower and Dom Brokelaw, both of NDT News

Tan Lather, formerly of CDX News
The Pasta Masta
Son of Scram
Hairy Thing Jive
Dom Daschund

The Dashing Dot
The Dotty Dasher
Usama U. Mamma Tambien
Strum Thermin
Dink Getsmart, of MO.

Jakes Carbill
Yoda Mann
Iraquem U. Breakem
Steubis Bookmeister (no good if you don't remember Louis Rukeyser)
Hubris Rookgeiser

Vanillashake Omar
Kaboom Youbetcha
Airy Flincher
"Yankee" Strudel Dondi
Mack A. Rooney

Tequilla O'Mealla
Chairman Paytrick Teahee
Saul Pieman
Rocky N. Bushwinkle
Fulmonty Pietin

Nequila Crewchef
Chuck Kowski
Herr Georg Tusch, Esq.
General Stonewallus
Harmonica Buttinsky

Sir Ballotalot
Sen. Diminutia
Sen. Nunsuch
Wolfman Donderblitzen
Dr. Pimento

Justin Case
Cimarron Coales
Okra Windshield and her precious Doctor Fillerup
Morphin' Mindy
Mahatma Caine (a nod to an original NETWIT on Compuserve: Mahatma Coate)

Oh yeah, I come in Arabic flavors, too...

Al Booqerky
Al Bum
Al Fahbett
Al Effent
Al Ejans

Al Ejehd
Al Kalyn
Al Kemmi
Al Abama
Al Eve

Al Asqa (a nod to Perry Como...but...what was the question again? What did Delaware?)

Al Innwun
Al Oehaa
Al Ofon
Al Fors


Al Aowd
Al Bumen
Al Ott
Al Oqayt
Al Ay

Al Fiyrd
Al American
Al Eiyoup
Ali Ali Alzinnfrei
Abd Omen

Abd Iqait
Abd Ukqt
Abd Toos





{Oh c'mon.  I was a charter member of Compuserve's NETWITS sig, which later was closed and then re-established as WITSIG. Deal with it.}



{Laff, dammit.  I could still post old taglines too, ya know. Oh. Wait...}


Before there was email, there was the QWK packet, and with QWK packets came taglines.  Taglines you could steal.  For instance:

Friends come and go but relatives never leave
Sure, I have a million dollar figure.  But it's all loose change.
CHAIR--the headquarters of your hindquarters
Hi, greetings, felicitations from Mr. Roget's neighborhood
Putt knot ewer trussed inner spell chequer

Move your vowels daily lest ye get consonnated.
What's another word for "thesaurus"?
CATHETER: What the cath did to the mouth.
How is it that the word "phonetic" isn't spelled that way?
 Beware the friendly neighborhood mailman.  He is a CARRIER

He who slings mud loses ground.
AAAAA = American Association Against Acronym Abuse
These are thymes that fry men's soles
Survival Tip #2 -- NEVER moon a werewolf
Don't count your chickens before they cross the road

AT THE HALF: Bears 16, Tourists 0.
Wreck the malls with cows on Harleys...fa,la,la,la,la...
Don't start vast projects with only half-vast ideas.
Vultures fly with carrion luggage
Beware the native Esperanto speaker

Love Thy Neighbor.  Just don't get caught.
 I thought I was wrong once, but I was mistaken.
Once I blew my shoehorn, but all I got were footnotes.
L'etat, C'est Moe. {All The World's A Stooge}
Four minus two is one and the same.

The early worm deserves the bird.
What color is a chameleon on a mirror?
Don't drink and park.  Accidents cause people.
Make headlines!  Sleep on a corduroy pillow.
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.

DISNEYLAND = a people trap operated by a mouse
Wench--what is used to turn the head of a dolt.
Due to budget cuts, the light at the end of the tunnel has been disconnected.
I never metaphor I didn't like
Sure, I'm strange.  I'm saving up to be eccentric.

When it comes to thought, some people stop at nothing.
Ask not for whom the bell tolls.  Let the machine get it.
It's as easy as 3.141592653589793238462643383279502884
I started out with nothing and still have most of  it left.
Never believe anything until it is officially denied.

Recession = what takes the wind out of your sales.
Your email has been returned due to insufficient voltage.
!eb lliw uoy tub ereh dnuora yzarc eb ot evah t'nod uoY
If at first you do succeed, try to hide your astonishment.
The idea is to die young as late as possible.

Practice mirth control--use conundrums.
What?! MONDAY AGAIN?!  Didn't we have that LAST week?!?!
I'll listen to reason when it comes out on CD.
If you get a divorce in Texas, are you still cousins?
Refuse Novocane--Transcend dental medication.

Gone Chopin. Be Bach in a minuet.
I'm calling from a phone booth at the corner of Walk and Don't Walk.
Get thee behind me, Satin!  I believe in Jeans!
Red ship crashes into blue ship. Sailors marooned.
The only winner of the War of 1812 was Chuck Kowski

...and on the 8th Day, God said: "OK, Murphey, now you're in charge."
 Let he who is never stoned cast the first sin.
Save A Horse--Ride A Cowboy
QVOD, ME ANXVS SVM?
Of course I'm in shape.  Round is a shape.    (this is a Greg Hewgill classic)

INTERNET= Open mouth, insert foot, echo internationally.
 Inhale Compound W and get rid of your worrywarts.
Boarding School = where to learn carpentry.
Hangover = The Wrath Of Grapes
He who hesitates is miles from the next exit.

A geological specimen in motion accumulates no deposits of lichen.
Time Flies Like Wind.  Fruit Flies Like Bananas.
A Waist Is A Terrible Thing To Mind.
A fool and his money are some party.
What, exactly, does a doo-wah-diddy-diddy-dum-diddy do?

Constantinopolitanischerdudelsackpfeipenmachergsellschaft.
 This space intentionally left blank.
 When you wave at me, use ALL your fingers!
 Nietzche is pietzche but Sartre is smartre.
 You et it too, Brutus?

A forklift is NOT a machine for setting tables
The Theorem Theorem: If IF, then THEN.
Practice safe government -- use kingdoms.
To err is human--to moo, bovine
Reality Meter:  [\.......]


Saturday, November 16, 2013

More vintage recipes, written with fountain pen

First I'm going to add this preface for my Muslim friends who return to this blog for new commentary on recent events regarding Iran, Syria, Egypt and Libya.  I am aware of the recent developments including the protesters in Libya who were murdered.  The failure of talks regarding Iran is expected--what constitutes progress is the very fact that talks were held; I expect nothing to miraculously resolve overnight. It will take time.  What's happening in Syria is also a first, and that, too, will take more time.  I haven't forgotten the region and I will comment when there are further concrete developments.

 I just realized I'm in deep doo-doo with the Boyah community, who invited me to a G+ Hangout and I didn't see the notification until it was well past over.  Sorry, guys. Give my regards to gri, if he has returned.  You guys do realize, I hope, that my main job at Boyah was as a translator.  gri-to-English, with some Russian thrown in.  I kinda lost that job, as I recall, ha.  No more gri. {To everybody else: gri is a long, long technical story. You have to be an SMF geek to get it. If you're a curious coder, Google up "grivitation". If you're an SMF coder and/or admin, odds are great that you've already not only met this guy but have banned him 7 ways from Sunday. Me, I find him to be a fascinating old Soviet with a colorful way with English words as a second language. So yeah--I speak gri, and I speak SMF code.}

And Doctor Who turns exactly 50 years old, exactly today. My, what a youngster he is.


"I got a million of 'em!"

I've got a long, long row to hoe when it comes to posting vintage recipes of all sorts, so today's focus is going to be on the ones that have been written in fountain pen.  Between the quill pen and the ball-point/gel pens, there were fountain pens. It was because of those that pocket protectors were invented. Julia Wright of Family Circle's Kitcheneering recommends a precaution when going on a flight to somewhere with a fountain pen--never fill it more than half full.

Other types of vintage recipes will be posted later as updates.

UPDATE: From Project Gutenberg:  Cookery Bookshelf  and Cookery and Dining in Imperial Rome; also from Project Gutenberg, a 17th century English translation of a Spanish missive about chocolate




























I have thusfar confined my recipe postings to those recipes are complete on one side of the file card. There are others which cover both sides, and that's what will be posted next.  In the meantime, enjoy a label recipe from a product that is no longer made, and note the postal address with zone number.




The above is a clipable page out of Family Circle magazine, and there was one of these in each issue. The binder to keep them in was sold separately, and was optional.



While on an online quest to dig up a 1950s vintage roast turkey recipe that appeared in the newspaper St. Louis Globe-Democrat I found other interesting things like the Riverfront Times blog, which dug up much older recipes.  What I was looking for was, IMHO, a turkey recipe to die for, so to speak, and one that I've been approximating from memory over the years.  It involves stuffing that has all the usual ingredients plus the following: veal, pork sausage, coriander, water chestnuts, apples, pineapple, orange, candied ginger, and cider, while using 2 egg yolks for basting.  If there are any ancient river rats out there who have clipped this recipe and kept it, PLEASE share!  Thank you.

Riverfront Times' Gut Check
Ghosts of Thanksgivings Past (Riverfront Times blog)














Sunday-related off-topic addendum:

Usually when something current pertains to an old post, I'll update the old post, but what PBS' "Religion & Ethics" brought up this Sunday pertains to a couple of posts I was hoping that by now would just be relegated to the dustbins of history.  What they broadcast this Sunday was something of historical significance.  Specifically, this is relevant to the mental health undercurrents which rose in the 1920s and which remained prevalent thru the early 1960s, having peaked in the 30s 40s and 50s--yeah, too significant to have been so blatantly ignored in certain quarters.  It's a Big Hairy Deal.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2013/11/15/november-15-2013-delayed-dignified-burials/21079/