triticale - the wheat / rye guy

A Strange Disturbance

Just as Monkey Watch will link anything found online regarding primates, so too will Always Low Prices link anything regarding Wal-Mart, however nerdesque. Two recent articles are more typical, they discuss companies which compete succesfully against Wal-Mart by providing specialized selection and a distinctive shopping experience. There are in fact also companies which compete successfully on price. Big Lots is expanding their presence in the Milwaukee area, and their newest store is going in across the street from their giant competitor. Family Dollar, another booming low price retailer, has recently opened a second location within walking distance of my house, with more stores popping up thruout the urban area. As I've stated before, I am fascinated by the popular hostility toward Wal-Mart, especially when the facts don't match the charges against them.

Society Update

Sean linked the story because it features the Bush twins; I'm linking it because I'm curious about the inclusion of the death toll in Iraq in what should be coverage of a Thanksgiving - birthday celebration.

Amerika

David Kaspar's Medienkritik provides "politically incorrect observations on reporting in the German media", particularly regarding coverage of issues concerning the United States. Reading his selected excerpts, his observations on them and the comments they engender, I see that people of both countries have less than complete understanding of one another.

I recently followed a link encountered on a model railroad mailing list to the website of a German company which produces figures scaled for use with garden railroads. Most are appropriate for use with European prototype railroads, such as the standard line from LGB, but could be adapted for use on a U.S. one with paint and a file. Some are, ummm, less appropriate, ranging from a man standing to pinkle on a convenient wall to Santa and an angel in lewd embrace. What I found worthy of mention is the three figures they offer for the United States. A locomotive engineer and fireman in American railroad garb, and a man with a gun.

Preferences

When people I knew went to jail, all they ever had smuggled in was drugs.

Then Again

They also gave the world golf.

Ianam

Michele has admitted to not particularly caring for the music of the Beatles, and in doing so has opened up the floodgates. Chaz has a nice response in which he puts forward that the Beatles were more significant culturally than musically.

It so happens that one of Milwaukee's radio stations did "Beatles - A to Z" last weekend. That particular barrel is deep enough that they didn't have to scrape the bottom of it, but for some of the letters they had to dig up some songs which were decididly less than great. I was thinking back to when they burst upon the scene, and was trying to remember what made them so great. Then Dean brought this to my attention, and it all came back to me. The biggest hit, the year before the Beatles started being heard in the United States, was Sherry by the Four Seasons. Once you have that for context, the success of the Fab Four seems to have been inevitable.

6.283185307178 And Spacemen's Legs

That's two pi(es) and a pasta salad made with rotini, which resemble the corrugated appendages of '50s TV spacesuits.

Peanut Butter Oatmeal Pie

This one is my absolute favorite; it has evolved considerably over the years, thru the combination of an oatmeal pie which at one time contained coconut and a very different sort of peanut butter pie, and has now reached perfection.

3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup corn syrup -- light or dark
1 1/4 cups oatmeal
1 stick butter or margarine -- melted
1 tsp Wonder brand flavoring --- or vanilla extract
2 eggs -- beaten
3/4 cup peanut butter -- creamy
1 9" pie crust

Mix sugar through eggs together. Stir in peanut butter. Let sit about 15 minutes to allow the oatmeal to soak up the filling a bit. Pour into pie crust. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 to 50 minutes. Cool a bit before cutting.

Use any pie crust you like (or none at all; the pie sets up quite firm once it cools). I like the peanut butter pie crust for this pie.

Peanut Butter Pie Crust: 1-1/2 cups pulverized peanut butter cookies (including the filling). Add 5 TBSP melted butter, mix together. Pat into pie shell & pre-bake for about 8-10 minutes at 350 degrees F.

French Silk Chocolate Pie

1 cup unsalted butter - 2 sticks
1 1/2 cups white sugar (very fine sugar, such as some of the generic beet sugar, is best)
4 oz unsweetened chocolate, melted
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
4 eggs
1 pie crust -- (9 inch) baked

Cream butter and sugar. Blend in chocolate and vanilla. Beating at high speed, add one egg and beat until thoroughly incorporated. Repeat with each remaining egg. Keep whipping until fluffy.
Spread in cooked pie shell of choice and keep refrigerated

Wee wifey's notes: "I generally use a crust made from pecan shortbread cookies. The key to success is thorough beating. Beat 5 minutes after each egg for a minimum of 20 minutes total for the pie. This is what makes the pie! And yes, I use a hand mixer. To do so I sit at the kitchen table with another chair in front of me (between my legs). On the chair I have 2 large phone books on which the bowl is placed. In this position I can lay my arm on the kitchen table and hold the hand mixer -- thus I am able to mix the filling for the required 20-25 minutes and not have my "arm drop off". Be sure that you can see a clock from this position. It also helps to have the radio or TV on to make the time go a bit faster."

Please note this pie uses raw eggs. Be sure to use only fresh eggs for
this recipe. Do not serve to the immune impaired.

Spacemen's Legs Pasta Salad

2 pound rotini -- white
3 cups Italian dressing -- buy a 24 oz bottle
2 bunch green onions -- chopped (including tops)
1 large can sliced black olives -- drained
1 large jar green salad olives -- drained
1 bunch fresh cilantro -- chopped
5 plum tomatoes -- chopped & seeds removed
2 lrg green pepper -- chopped (to taste)
1 cup celery -- chopped
1 cup parmesan cheese -- grated (to taste)
1 cup real mayo -- or less
1/2 cup sour cream -- to taste
salt and pepper to taste

Cook noodles, drain and rinse. Mix with green onions and the bottle of Italian dressing. Put in icebox for 2 hours. Mix rest of ingredients into pasta mix. Gets better with time.

NOTE: add any fresh vegetables that you like: sliced mushrooms, chopped
broccoli or cauliflower, sliced or diced seedless cucumbers or zuchini, fine shred carrots are all good. Diced sweet onions, reds or Vidalias, can be substituted for the green onions. A tablespoon of celery seed can be substituted for the chopped celery. Running the cilantro through the mini food processor makes it less obtrusive. The onions can be through the food processor as well. If you don't like cilantro substitute parsley. If you are adding a lot of extra vegetables, add extra mayo or sour cream for the dressing. If you put too much dressing in and it gets runny, add extra parmesan cheese & that will dry up the dressing & make the salad taste even nummier.

Giving Thanks

Amanda Butler, one of the Creskittens, is currently in Kazakhstan with the Peace Corps. Living conditions there contrast with those in Chicago in ways which should help us appreciate what we have to be thankful for.

Lots of other people have posted lists of what they are thankful for. Susie's warrents further comment. She says that she is thankful that the Pilgrims served turkey and not raccoon.

Some years back, when some of the cousins who are now married off were still youngsters, my mother in law had a wee nip or several of the Thanksgiving brandy. As we were all sitting down to the feast, she began to lecture everyone, in her gradeschool teacher voice, about how we needed to think about how much we have to be thankful for. We have our health, our wellbeing, and our family to be thankful for. We can also be thankful that the Pilgrim Fathers went out and shot turkeys, instead of wildcats, because if they had we'd all be sitting down now to eat pussy.

Soldiertomovies

The Soldier To Movies project I have been blogging about continues to grow. A total of 1680 movie packages (DVD, microwave popcorn, gooey candy and drink mix) have gotten to the troops so far, with the majority going direct to the Family Readiness Group in Germany which handles final delivery rather than thru the local organizer in the Milwaukee area. Said organizer originally targetted Thanksgiving as the end date for the project, but has been inspired by the response to continue indefinately so that new troops arriving in the sandbox can enjoy the entire experience instead of just hand-me-down DVDs.

The American Forces Press Service has reported on the project, and thru that report I learned of the Defense Department's website America Supports You, which is a resource for anyone wishing to participate in these morale building projects or start one of their own.

Life Imitates The Onion

Domineering wifey specifically said "large" jar of salad olives.

Not A Spammer

I was checking the Milwaukee Library Countycat to see if they had Bill Whittle's book on order yet (they don't; I'll submit a request card) and happened to notice a listing for the poetry of Hernia Whittlebot, who, if she had a middle initial, would be a perfect spammer the likes of Reprinted J. Menorah and Heirloom K. Toothless who email me offers of Levely Clbeerities and Stupid Tenes.

I've also been getting spam from sources with tradition spammer names. Many are offering C1alis Soft Tabs, which seem like the last thing one would want, and one advertised weewee growth. Back when I had a weewee it hadn't occurred to me that I would want it to grow.

Update:

Let me rephrase that. Back when what I have was known to me as a weewee...

Wizbang Weblog Awards

I always figured Marsupials are from Mars, but it seems I've nominated myself for the prize of "Tallest Marsupial in Ecuador".

Not A Spammer

I was checking the Milwaukee Library Countycat to see if they had Bill Whittle's book on order yet (they don't; I'll submit a request card) and happened to notice a listing for the poetry of Hernia Whittlebot, who, if she had a middle initial, would be a perfect spammer the likes of Reprinted J. Menorah and Heirloom K. Toothless who email me offers of Levely Clbeerities and Stupid Tenes.

I've also been getting spam from sources with tradition spammer names. Many are offering C1alis Soft Tabs, which seem like the last thing one would want, and one advertised weewee growth. Back when I had a weewee it hadn't occurred to me that I would want it to grow.

Elitist?

I don't particularly drink green tea; would pink lemonade count?

Merger Mania

When I told my wee wifey of the Sears-KMart merger, her response was a simple undignified snort. I myself had thought immediately of dinosaurs mating.

Some people think the merger has a chance of working, and even predict further growth. The canonical dinosaur marriage has survived for twenty years, but I wouldn't take that long a bet on this one.

'S No Boarding

Could we have counted on this character to come thru like this?

Disappointment

Sports fans who go to the fights in the expectation that a hockey game may break out need to adapt to cultural changes.

Thanks, But...

Boudicca is hosting the latest Carnival of the Recipes, and in linking to my contribution, she asserts that I never submits anything other than top notch.

There are two things I have to say about that.

First of all, last week's entry belongs in some other notch than the top one; it was posted for entertainment value rather than gustatory value.

Second of all, everyone else who isn't going for entertainment value is also submitting top notch recipes. We have long been into competitive cooking, and this is one more chance to shine.

Both of us were raised by parents who manifested ego thru food preparation, altho never in anything as declassé as county fairs. My mother would demonstate what a great cook she was by sharing her special recipes, but neglecting to spell out details a truly good cook would surely know. Then, when the other person could not produce as fine a dish, she could gloat. I'd rather have people like me because a recipe I shared turned out well. Which reminds me, if you are using a boughten crust for the savory pie, we use the refrigerated ones, in a glass pie pan, rather than the ones which come frozen in a foil pan.

Learned Too Late

If my mother had been aware of what this new research indicates at the time that it was relevant, it probably would have saved me from going to that nasty-smelling medical office for dry ice and sulfur treatments. Oh well.

Savory Pie

This pie, like an ordinary pot pie or one with four and twenty blackbirds, is meant to be part of the meal, rather than a dessert. This is not my wee wifey's own recipe, but it came from her Blue Ribbon collection. It was a winner at the 1988 Texas State Fair. Many years ago, herself baked a savory mushroom pie as an entry in the Chicago Park District Bake-o-rama. The judges liked it so much that they ate the whole thing (most entries were judged on small enough sampling that the competitors all got a taste) and then disqualified it on the premise that it wasn't a dessert pie. There was, by the way, no such specification in the rule book.

If you serve this to your guests as a first course you will probably confuse them. That's OK. For the perfect followup you can do what we did once for a Thanksgiving party. She baked a double batch of pound cake. I then carved various pieces, and assembled it with toothpicks to resemble a small roast turkey, which she then glazed with a golden brown icing. At least one person questioned why the bird was on the dessert table.

TARTE COTE D'AZUR (AN ITALIAN PIE)

1 eggplant, about 1-3/4 pounds
2 small zucchini, about 1-1/4 pounds, trimmed.
1 large onion, peeled
2 green peppers, cored and seeded
1 pound red ripe tomatoes, cored and peeled
1/4 cup olive oil
2 TB finely chopped garlic
1 tsp. finely chopped fresh thyme or half the amount dried
1 bay leaf
salt and freshly ground pepper
1 cup coarsely chopped parsley
1/2 cup pitted black olives
1 recipe for a 2 crust pastry (or boughter crust if need be)
2 cups grated Fontina cheese, preferably imported
3/4 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese, preferably imported
(do not use sawdust spaghetti topping)
1 egg yolk
2 t. water

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
Peel the eggplant and cut into 1 1/2 inch cubes. There should be about 4 1/2 cups.
Cut each zucchini in half. Cut each crosswise into 3/4 inch pieces.
Cut the onion into half inch cubes.
Cut the green pepper into 1 1/2 inch cubes.
Cut the tomatoes into 2 inch cubes. There should be about 2 1/2 cups.

Heat the oil in the casserole and add the eggplant. Cook, stirring occasionally, about five minutes. Add the onion, zucchini and green peppers. Stir to blend the ingredients. Add the garlic, thyme, bay leaf, salt, pepper to taste. Cook about four minutes, stirring. Add the tomatoes and parsley and stir. Cook about five minutes. Place the casserole in the oven and bake 30 minutes. Stir in the olives and bake ten minutes longer.
Let the mixture stand until thoroughly cold.

Line a 10" pie plate with half the pastry, letting one Inch of the pastry hang over the side. About one-third of the mixture goes in the pie plate, a layer of Fontini and a layer of Parmesan cheese, and so on. Continue making layers until all of the mixture and cheeses are used. Brush the overlapping rim of the pastry with a little of the egg blended with the water. Cover with a second layer of pastry.
Seal by pressing the edges together. Flute, if desired, or use the tines of the fork to make a design all around. Use a small biscuit cutter to make a hole in the center of the top pastry. This will allow the steam to escape.
Brush the top all over with the egg yolk mixture.

Place the pie in the oven and bake 30 minutes. Reduce the heat to 375 degrees. Bake 15 to 20 minutes longer or until golden brown on top. Six servings

Lileks Is Wrong

Even stranger, he's wrong about a popular culture detail. That wasn't a hallucination; check the fourth paragraph from the bottom.

Markets In Everything

Ten Year Old Virgin sold on Ebay

Small Things Indeed

Some people wouldn't have seen this as anything to be troubled by.

Jumbo Shrimp

When I was a youngster I thought that "a little big" and "pretty ugly" was the height of humor. More recently I have been amused by thoughts of "marijuana initiative" and "social work". I never dared to push the range of the oxymoron as far as the manufacturer of this product, which my son purchased in part so that I could share his discovery.

Troop Support Update

Matt is reporting on some major corporations which are doing things to support the troops. This is of course a good thing, but a large business can easily justify the expense as good public, customer and employee relations. Not to demean their generosity, but Sears has pretty good odds of not having to pay off on that five year promise.

What is truly impressive is when a small business puts together an effort to support the troops. I stopped by the office of the people who had the idea to
take a soldier to the movies to drop off our donation. The entire place was taken up with cartons full of DVDs and the other things which make up the movie experience: microwave popcorn, Good n' Plenties and lemonade mix. This is a mom and pop accounting firm, and they are handling their clients' books in this chaos.

I am pleased to report that the movie drive is taking off. They told me that everything in the boxes I saw had been donated this week, that another donation centers has sprung, and that, as I had predicted, other units besides the one their son is serving in are on the receiving end. If you aren't up for collecting the full experience, they welcome monetary donations and previously viewed DVDs, so do what you can to take a soldier to the movies.

Not Quite

"Motorcycle Izh Yunker (350cc) is performed in American style."

Potatoes And Point

6 large potatoes, boiled in jacket
salt
1 large salt herring

Bring the potatoes to the table in a bowl. Tie the herring to the light fixture above the dining room table. Each person peels his potato, dips it in the salt, and points it at the herring.

This recipe was found in "Mrs. Rasmussen's Book of One Arm Cookery" by Mary Lasswell. We collect cookbooks, and read them for entertainment. This one caught my eye because the dust jacket featured art by George Price, and proved to be every bit as fun as I expected. More strange recipes, like one for Salt Horse, originally a military insult for beef preserved by salting, especially if not well preserved. Now it has become a horse doover.

1 glass chipped beef or dried beef (this would now be the pressed beef,
as sold by Buddig's)
1 glass (in other words equal amounts; units would now be
packets of the beef) walnut meats
sufficient mayonaisse to make a spread

Run the meat and walnuts thru the food processor, separately. Mix, and blend with the mayonaisse. Serve on thin slices of whole wheat bread.

There are also serious recipes, and serious advice.

If we buy ten cents' worth o' somethin' -- don't enjoy it an' throw some of it out -- it was extravagant. If it cost two dollars an' we eat every crumb an' lick the dish -- it was a bargain!

Election Impact

The first change I've noticed since the election is that most of the yard signs are gone. My neighbor across the street still has the Bush-Cheney one up, but the added banner now says "Recall" instead of "Defeat". Don't hold yer breath.

Driving the wee wifey to church this morning, I noticed a new lawn sign at some major intersections. "Now Hiring: Welders - Equip Mech - CNC Mach" with a 414 (Milwaukee and first tier suburbs) phone numbers. These are some of those manufacturing jobs you hear so much about.

Another change I've noticed is in the spam I've been getting. Along with the typical Igniting M. Acclimatization, Pulley E. Birding, and Pampered K. Berzelius, I've also been contacted by the politically connected Regulatory L. Editorializing and Reality R. Preponderant and by the clearly election related Joyously Q. Rove.

All of the spam from the Middle Initial Entities comes to my non-blog address, but since the election I've seen an ominous upswing in the unreadable spam from Korea at both addresses, and I've also gotten my first spam from Turkey. I have no idea what it was selling, because Eudora rejected the HTML, but it came from someone who took his name from the one risqué joke in Moby Dick.

Ah, Yes

As my father used to say (usually when it was less appropriate), I used to go out with a girl like that.

Coincidence?

I find the timing suspicious.

Combat Mission

There are still some people around who believe that the Air National Guard aren't warriors.

Multi-Yum

The new Carnival of Recipes is up, and just like last week the Carnival convener has a special liking for the dish I posted. This is cool, but what would be cooler is feedback from people who try a recipe, any from any week's amazing assortment, for the first time and let people know how it turns out. Don't just read'em, make'm.

Engineering Analysis

There was a time when Steven Den Beste would have written an essay describing the methods an engineer might use to determine whether anomalous research data was valid, and then tie it into a discussion of the validity and significance of the election outcome. The emails picking nits out of his secondary points have taken the fun out of blogging for him, so he distilled it all into a three word essay. I understand that this still wasn't perfect enough for everyone.

Much of my time at work over the last several weeks has been spent working with others on chasing down what we thought were two separate problems regarding mobile call handovers between our network and our roaming partner to the north. Everything fell into place yesterday, and the process is functioning correctly as of today, but if we had paid attention from the beginning to where I was when initiating test calls, we would have seen that both issues were part of the same problem, and solved it much sooner. No doubt the uncertainty in the pre-election polls and the utter inaccuracy of the exit polls have been due in part to similar failures to track essential but seemingly trivial and irrelevant details. This happens when people are too rigid in their assumptions as to how a system functions. I'm just not up for turning all this into a coherent explanation.

Sweet Kraut

Or, as my wee wifey calls it, Amish Sauerkraut Salad.

3 pounds sauerkraut -- drained & chopped
1 red papper -- diced
1 green pepper -- diced
3 stalks celery -- diced
1 large red onion -- diced

DRESSING

1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup salad oil -- peanut oil is nice
2/3 cup white vinegar
1/3 cup water
1 level tsp. caraway seeds

Combine sauerkraut & diced vegetables.

Heat & stir dressing ingredients until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture well blended. Pour hot dressing over the vegetable mixture & toss to combine. Refrigerate 24 hours before serving. You really MUST make this a day ahead. Right after you make it you'll find it "eh", but the next day it is fantastic. Great for potlucks & picnics where mayo is suspect. Perfect for slawburgers, with Dusseldorf mustard. Keeps well in the fridge, which is why the recipe is for a large batch. It wouldn't last otherwise.

Let's Be Honest

There would have been a temptation not to be this gracious had it been Tuh Ray Zah, rather than Elizabeth Edwards, facing cancer. Under the circumstances, I join with the prayers of the commenters.

So?

I got an interesting email from the more rational of my leftwing brothers.

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Shares in problem-plagued Halliburton Co. (NYSE:HAL - news) rose to their highest level in more than three years on Wednesday, carried by a rally in oil-related stocks after President Bush 's re-election.

This suspicious surge turns out to be a 4.33 percent increase from the day before, and gain of almost 60 percent from its 52 week low, just short of a year ago. This is in the context of a broad-based one day market surge of 1.12 percent. If he bothered to read the entire article this quote came from he would have learned that the increase in value comes from the health of the oil sector, their core market, and from plans to deal with their bankrupt KBR division, the one which has had, since the Clinton era, fast track cost-plus military contracts. If he had actually gone so far as to research the stock he would have seen that its climb has tracked that of its sector over the last year.

A little more research would have shown him that Merck & Co. was up 4 percent, Pfizer Inc. up 2.6 percent, and Cigna Corp. up 2.9 percent. The pharmaceuticals are up for political reasons, they are now at a reduced risk of having to extend the practice of selling at marginal cost, extorted by the Canadian government, to the U.S. market. The insurance company, on the other hand, just happened to release their third quarter earning numbers today.

But it is so much simpler just to go Halliburton! Cheney! Unocal! Enron! Gaaah!

False Premise - Failed Book

James R. Rummel has spotted copies of Bellesisle's work of historical fiction, Arming America, selling for not much more than any random hardcover at a yard sale.

I had a thought just the previous day about the notion the book espoused, that the weapons industry which sprung up during the ACW created a gun culture so that they could keep selling their products. Manufacturing capacity can actually be redirected more easily than a nation's culture. Artillery manufacturers didn't convince ranchers to buy cannon. They took their boring lathes and used them to produce steam engine cylinders. Mason and Rodgers, two Civil War cannon makers which made this transition, produced some of the best looking locomotives of the late 19th century. This same pattern continues to this day. Husqvarna, initially a firearms maker, now produces chainsaws and lawnmowers. Heckler and Koch, once a sewing machine manufacturer, now produces firearms. It is only in leftist managed economies and leftist fantasies of how capitalism works that factories can pump out product which nobody wants.

Nothing New

Blackfive reports that the people who voted in the recent Republican primary were stricken from the rolls at his polling place in Chicago. This has long been standard practice, if not always so massive. Twentysome years ago we put a campaign poster for the re-election of our alderman, Roman Pucinski, at that time the one Republican in the Chicago City Council. We weren't yet devoted Republicans. The poster was more a favor to my mother-in-law, who used Pucinski's law firm. We found ourselves similarly stricken from the rolls, but were able to clear it up without needed to raise as much fuss as Blackfive is doing.

Early Returns

In the sense that at 7:15 this morning one of my neighbors had to run home and then return to the polling place with documentation that his new home was no longer a 2 family residence (rezoned 8 years and two owners ago), and that only he and his partner, and none of the others listed, actually lived there. My wee wifey took advantage of this to raise the awareness of some of the East Side types new in the neighborhood as to what really goes on. One sweet young thing's eyes bugged out when she heard about our ghosts getting "Thank you for voting" postcards.

Also note that things were a total clusterstalk. The front gate was padlocked, so people had to go around thru the parking lot. The delay was trivial, but they were not ready at Oh Seven Hundred. The election judges were getting on the job training, and by the time they got to ballot 19 (mine) the tabulation was already crossed up.

Gong Show?

Jeff Soyer says he was watching Vermont political debates, but I have my doubts.

This Goes Too Far

Does this legislator think that Hunter S. Thompson's may get depressed when he learns that he shares his first name with our canine?